


A World in Parallel

by thenightwindow



Series: Remember Not to Forget [2]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Imaginary Friends, Kinda, M/M, Reincarnation, Still Angsty, Tom centric, Tom is a delight, literally just Tom's side of the story, still featuring soft boys, still featuring soft boys in love, technically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenightwindow/pseuds/thenightwindow
Summary: Tom tried to let everything go, to finally give up the ghost. Sixteen is too old, seventeen, he kept telling himself, even as he filled the margins of his school notes with scratchy imitations of Sco’s face, but nothing looked right. He’d sorted through so many reference photos, all trying to find that particular jawline, that nose, that exact brow line. Nothing was right.Eighteen is too old, he thought to himself as he read through uni brochures, sorting through the credentials of their history programs. He liked all aspects of history, really, but he’d be lying if he said that the First World War wasn’t his deepest passion, even as the recorded histories and grainy photographs turned his stomach with a particular type of dread, like a cold wind against his spine. It was horrifying, but it was also everything.Tom had no idea why.-When Tom sees the face of his childhood imaginary friend on a stranger, he's obviously a little curious. But when that stranger turns out to be the handsome mystery that is Will Schofield, well, Tom might be a little bit in love.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: Remember Not to Forget [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673752
Comments: 46
Kudos: 139





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Tom's side of things! While this is meant to be a standalone piece, it will probably make a lot more sense if you read the first part of this series, [A Kinder World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642489/chapters/54116794), first :)

Sometimes Tom would dig back into his mind as far as his memories could go, reaching back to the dusty, forgotten days of his childhood. Back before Sarah was born, before his dad…Before. There were a few flashes of things, his toy cars and his little bed, his crayons and his _Where’s Wally?_ books.

But more than anything, he could remember Sco.

Sco had always been there, his serious face looking down at him. Kind, gentle Sco. He sat beside Tom on his bedroom floor, twisting blades of grass together, waiting. For what, Tom still didn’t know, but little Tom hadn’t minded. Simply wanted Sco to stay close.

He loved Sco, felt it deep, buried in his chest, buried in his memories.

Sometimes, just as Tom was closing his eyes in the darkness, drifting off to sleep, he could almost feel Sco taking his hand. He could almost make out Sco’s face.

He loved Sco more than anyone.

Tom was seven when he realized that maybe he was bit old to still have an imaginary friend. All of his mates had moved on, more interested in footie or gaming or that girl, Martha, who everyone seemed to be half in love with, but Tom couldn’t quite let go. Not yet.

In the middle of class, he surreptitiously bent his head over his notebook, drawing Sco for the millionth time. The older he got, the more details he was able to pull from his daydreams. The straps and pockets, the contrast between the green khaki suit and the leather jerkin, the different stripes on his sleeves. The rank stripes, the injury stripe. The older he got, the more he realized what exactly he was looking at.

Sco was a soldier. Tom felt sick when he thought about it too much, thought about why Sco’s hands were stained so dark sometimes, why he seemed so jumpy whenever it stormed outside Tom’s window. It all added up in ways that Tom didn’t know how to explain.

“Mr. Blake,” his teacher said sharply as she stopped beside his desk. Sco’s face was half complete in his picture, looking very little like how Tom wanted him to look. “Do we need to have another conversation about paying attention in class?” A spattering of laughter sounded around the room as Tom sunk low in his seat, scowling at the incomplete portrait. It wasn’t like he was going to get Sco right this time or anything, but still.

“No,” he pouted.

“Excellent” she pronounced, moving back to the front of the class. “Since it’s nearly Remembrance Day, today we’re going to be discussing the Great War, also known as World War I or the War to End all Wars.” The teacher flipped on the projector, causing a black and white photo to be cast across the white projector screen. Tom sat up straight in his seat.

This was Sco’s war.

In the picture, men stood along a deep ditch, all in matching uniforms, carrying rifles and looking at the camera with rather bored expressions. They were all dressed like Sco, silly helmets and everything.

Tom could practically see the trenches extending to either side of Sco for a moment, could visualize the colours and shapes of his world instead of the strange cut-out of Sco against Tom’s average school life. For a moment, Sco looked over his shoulder at Tom, and he swore he could make out his face perfectly for the first time for the tiniest of seconds.

At the front of the classroom, the teacher droned on, and Tom’s pencil flew across the pages of his notebook, filling each page with notes. Filling up his head with something that he never thought he’d capture.

Sco’s world was maybe a little closer in reach than he thought.

“Don’t you ever get tired of drawing the same guy over and over?” his sister, Sarah, asked as she leaned over Tom’s shoulder. They’d spread their drawings wide across the dining table, her colourful bunnies leaping over Tom’s careful depiction of Sco cleaning his rifle. Short Magazine Lee-Enfield No. I Mark III, the bayonet hanging in its sheath from his webbing.

“Not really,” Tom mumbled, shading Sco’s hands carefully. He had long, almost delicate fingers, and they’d turned out particularly nice in this drawing.

Sarah sighed heavily and leaned even harder into his shoulder. “You’re so good at drawing, though, why can’t you draw my characters again?” she whined. Her fingers curled into the back of his sweatshirt and shook him in her frustration. “Or more of those pretty girls, I like them. Draw me Cardcaptor Sakura!”

“Sarah, if you shut up and let me finish this, I can get to drawing your stuff faster,” he huffed. He glanced at the green numbers displaying the time on the cooker, doing the math on when he’d need to start supper, hoping he’d have time to finish his drawing and maybe produce something to make Sarah leave him alone. Not that he hated drawing pictures for her, but he was _busy_ , this was _important_.

Twelve was far, far too old to keep clinging to an imaginary friend, Tom knew that. Didn’t stop him from doing just that, though.

His bookshelves were filled with visual guides and costuming books and personal accounts and big, sweeping descriptions of the War. That was all Sco would call it, “the War,” said only in his most soft, grave voice. The more Tom found, the more he dug up, the better his pictures were, the clearer Sco’s voice and face and life seemed. Sco felt so real when Tom had his nose pressed into a book, felt like maybe he could have been a real person instead of the careful construction that Tom knew he was. That he _had_ to be.

Tom pushed his drawing away at the thought. He sketched out a rough form on another sheet of blank paper, adding in the quick idea of a full skirt and ribbons. He’d never admit it to Sarah, but he liked drawing these kinds of things, too, liked trying to match the way the fabric was drawn in his mangas, liked trying to get the sharp hairstyles to look pretty instead of silly on the paper.

But he only had so much time. He pushed the sketch over to Sarah to finish and stretched his arms over his head. “Is brekkie food alright for supper? I think mum said we had enough milk for pancakes,” he said as he pulled out a pan from the cabinet.

“Whatever,” Sarah replied, already absorbed with filling in the lines Tom had created.

Mum was gone a lot, had to be for work. Long hours pulling long shifts left her quiet and tired when she made it home in the afternoon, so Tom picked up the slack. It was his job as the man of the house, or at least that was what his mum always said. It wasn’t fun or anything, but he didn’t mind, really. Cooking was kind of fun most of the time and looking after his sister wasn’t a big deal, really. He didn’t get to play footie in the schoolyard after class with the rest of his mates, but it could be worse. He got to pick what they watched on the telly when they got home, so that was cool. And he always had time to draw and read without anyone (except Sarah, obviously) bothering him.

It wasn’t so bad.

As the dollop of pancake batter sizzled and fried in the pan, Tom let his eyes close. If he focused hard enough, he could imagine Sco standing next to him. He was taller than Tom and often leaned into him in a way that made Tom feel oddly small. But safe, safe, safe.

Tom had grown, but Sco was just the same as he always was. Quiet, his voice soft in Tom’s ears, standing close but never quite near enough. But as Tom had grown, his mind must have wrapped up Sco into the folds of some other thoughts, twisting him around like ribbon in the breeze. Because Sco never really seemed like an imagination, because Tom _did_ imagine him sometimes, and that was always so different than Sco the person.

Sco felt more like the shimmering, uncertain memories of his dad. Long gone now, disappeared to who knows where. Sco felt like the very real, but hard to pin down images Tom dug into the back of his head to find—even though Sco was there, too. Sco felt like something that Tom was just on the edge of remembering, just on the edge of forgetting.

Sco felt like someone Tom had met once, even though he knew, he _knew_ it was impossible.

By the time Tom had opened his eyes again, the bottom of the pancake had gone a little too dark. He sighed, even as his mind conjured the sound of Sco laughing gently. It was a nice sound, he thought as he patted the deep brown pancake with his spatula. Sco was nice and wonderful and very much not real, he told himself.

If only he could stop wishing that Sco was.

Tom tried to let everything go, to finally give up the ghost. _Sixteen is too old, seventeen_ , he kept telling himself, even as he filled the margins of his school notes with scratchy imitations of Sco’s face, but nothing looked right. He’d sorted through so many reference photos, all trying to find that particular jawline, that nose, that exact brow line. Nothing was right.

 _Eighteen is too old,_ he thought to himself as he read through uni brochures, sorting through the credentials of their history programs. He liked all aspects of history, really, but he’d be lying if he said that the First World War wasn’t his deepest passion, even as the recorded histories and grainy photographs turned his stomach with a particular type of dread, like a cold wind against his spine. It was horrifying, but it was also everything.

Tom had no idea why.

“ _Blake_ ,” Sco would still call to him, eighteen and far too old to keep thinking wistfully of his childhood imaginary friend. He talked to Tom in fragments, half-sentences that should have made no sense, but always seemed to draw all the lines together. Like those dot drawings, dragging his pencil from point 1 to point 2 to point 3. He was like memories. Ones that looked like dreams or imaginations most of the time, but felt like memories.

“ _Blake_ ,” Sco would call him, looking over his shoulder at Tom. He could trace the shape of his words in the air, just like a dot drawing, forming pictures of deep trenches and lines of men and lights in the sky.

“ _Blake_ ,” Sco would say.

Tom was eighteen and a bit terrified that there was no way to move past Sco. He had no idea if he even wanted to try.

There was a part of himself that was a bit worried that leaving his quiet routine would dislodge Sco from his head. That leaving behind the familiar walls of his bedroom where he’d spent every night for years closing his eyes and hoping that tonight was the night that he could remember what it felt like for Sco to push back his hair from his forehead would somehow make all of that fade away.

The thing was that it kind of did.

Sco almost felt like a whisper of some old life he’d lived, separate from the long, dark dormitory corridors, separate from the massive lecture halls filled with students, separate from the crowded pub tables after class. It was easier here to put Sco out of his mind, shoved back into the little corner of homesick in his heart. Easier to pretend like he didn’t still think of him, didn’t still draw the rough outline of his face over and over in the hopes that maybe this time he’d get it right.

Maybe he really had gotten Sco mixed up with memories of home and his family and everything.

Tom knew that he should have been relieved, but it just kind of ached. It was harder to feel him hovering nearby, his hand reaching out for Tom’s shoulder, even though he knew that he couldn’t ever remember what it felt like. What Sco’s hands felt like.

But it wasn’t like he was lonely or anything, not when he’d fallen into a group so easily. There was always someone around. There was Paola who was always taking the piss, there was Alfie who could drink everyone under the table, there was even the boy across the hall from his dorm who he watched all of _Cowboy Bebop_ with in one night. There were always people, in his classes, at parties, standing in corridors as he walked past, and yet.

And yet he could feel that there was something he was overlooking, something he’d missed as he ran from his dorm to his classes, as he sat as just another face in a crowded history lecture. Tom still found himself reaching for Sco at night, feeling incredibly stupid for still being hopeful that Sco would finally be able to reach back.

“Thanks again for meeting up,” his classmate was saying as Tom followed him out of the library, Lucy taking her time checking out her books behind them. “This project’s been awful, but I feel so much better now. You’ve been so helpful,” he continued, reaching out to gently touch Tom’s forearm.

Tom smiled easily, still deciding how much he actually cared about flirting back right now. “It’s not a problem, I’m just—”

From the corner of his eye, Tom thought he caught a glimpse of something, a flash of recognition in the crowd milling around them on the wide front steps of the library. Tom watched the back of the people’s heads bobbing and weaving as they walked away.

It was a little like being a child again, catching glimpses of Sco on the edges of his mind every other minute and being _sure_ that he could see Sco there with him. Back before he knew that Sco was just an image, a vision of what Tom didn’t have. Couldn’t have. A father, maybe. Reliable and kind, patient even when Tom knew he was annoying him. But Sco had stopped feeling like that ages ago. Now all he could see was the murky outline of Sco’s face next to his classmate’s. It was stupid.

“Tom?” his classmate asked, leaning into his line of sight.

“Sorry, thought I saw someone I knew,” Tom laughed. But the image clung to him, wrapped him up in it like it always did, a blanket in the cold. “Were you saying something?”

His classmate smiled, leaning in still further. “What would you say to meeting up for a drink sometime?” he asked, very real and very much here. His hand was gentle on Tom’s arm, not too much pressure, but clearly still there. He was shorter than Sco, his voice deeper and his hair much darker.

He wasn’t.

“Oh, yeah, with the class? I heard that there was a group getting together after all of our theses are done. Yeah, I was planning on going to that,” Tom said, glancing back to Lucy as she tried to hover inconspicuously behind them, hoping to egg her along.

He turned back just in time to see his classmate’s face fall.

On their walk back to the dormitory, Lucy sighed softly, “Seriously, Tom, it’s like you’ve got a ten metre radius around you sometimes.”

“What do you mean?” Tom asked, but he knew. Of course he knew.

“Sam’s a good guy, you get on with him really well, and yet, the second he asks you out, you play dumb. It’s just so weird, because I know you’re a romantic. Are you just not into dating or something?”

Tom scuffed the toe of his trainer along the pavement. There weren’t any explanations here, not really. Nothing that made any sense to anyone, including himself. It wasn’t like he’d never dated anyone, wasn’t like he wasn’t happy to get off with someone at a party or two, but everything always led back to Sco.

No one was like Sco.

“I don’t know, I just want things to feel…” Tom ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “Right? Promising? Like, everyone in films are always going on about ‘sparks’ or some shit like that. I guess I just want to feel _something_.”

Lucy hummed, nodding slowly. “I can't fault you for that. But what if you never meet anyone who makes you feel like that?”

Watching the pedestrians around them for a moment, Tom imagined seeing Sco in the crowd like he thought he had for a single moment outside the library. How much would he give for Sco to appear, to be made real for him?

“Then I guess I’ll just keep looking,” Tom said finally.

He’d give anything.

They were nearly late to the lecture hall, the four of them barrelling into the room just as the professor was taking roll. Tom sagged with relief against Jovin’s shoulder. It was the beginning of the semester, the beginning of Tom’s second year of uni, and he was praying for an easy year. A good year.

Everything was stacking up in that direction, what with all of his closest mates packed into one house, his schedule full of classes that actually sounded worth taking. Tom was hopeful, despite everything, that he’d find… He let the thought trail off, terrified to form that thought even silently. Maybe this year he’d find some way to not be so alone, that was a better way to think of it.

Now if they could just get Mark to wake up at a decent time before this class, then Tom would be setting himself up very well.

“Sorry again, mates,” Mark muttered as they slid into the back of the class, the four of them in a neat row. Lucy yawned hugely, patting Mark’s arm distractedly as she pulled out her notes. Jovin simply scowled in his direction.

“I still can’t believe you slept through eight separate alarms. You might need one of those alarms that get louder and louder the longer you ignore them,” Tom said in an undertone as the professor began to introduce their guest lecturers for the day. “You know, something that’s smarter than you are when you’re sleepy.”

“That’s the problem, dude. I wake up, turn the thing off, then fall back asleep,” Mark sighed.

“Jesus,” Tom giggled, sitting back in his seat, ready to ignore whatever the hell library presentation they would be subjected to today. He yawned as the professor talked about primary sources, about research skills and all that. Then, the professor stepped aside, leaving the stage to the two librarians. The pretty dark-haired woman stayed sitting, but the man she was sat next to stood.

Tom leaned forward in his seat, using literally all of his willpower to stay seated. His heart was crashing in his chest, pounding out an aggressive rhythm.

“Good morning,” the man spoke. All clean, crisp sounds. He tugged at the cuff of his oxford shirt, the only sign that he was self-conscious. The rest of him seemed so assured, professional. He had the face of someone who’d been born a century ago with the serious set of his lips, the shape of his cheekbones, the cut of his chin, the depth of his eyes.

The vague image of Sco, the one that he’d carried all throughout his life, the one that stood stoically next to everyone Tom had ever met, that image stepped neatly into this man. Melded into one.

He was _perfect_. The perfect reference for Sco in every possible way.

“There are a number of reasons why consulting primary sources remains the most viable pathway towards understanding history and its implications,” the man continued as if reading a carefully worded script. It nearly sounded natural, but there was something almost unnaturally calm about him. It reminded Tom of those times when Sco would lose his temper, how he’d always pull back hard from his anger and talk to Tom with slow, evenly paced words. That façade of control masking the depths of his feeling.

Tom wanted to cry, everything about him was perfect. So perfect.

Hanging on his every word, Tom drank in this vision, tracing the shape of his hands as he gestured, slowly settling into himself as he continued to talk. Seeing everything about Sco assembled together for the first time, Tom was struck by how beautiful he was. For the first time in his life, Tom felt no need to draw anything at all, not if it meant looking away from this person when Tom had full permission to stare.

All too soon, the man stepped back to let the other librarian speak. Tom sat back in his seat slowly, the tension in his chest shifting. The man was positioned to be completely hidden from sight now. What a horrible, terrible shame, he thought.

“Tom, were you even breathing?” Lucy whispered, leaning over Mark to flick Tom on the cheek as the other librarian began her part of the lecture.

“‘Course,” Tom huffed, but, honestly, he couldn’t be sure.

With the man out of sight, Tom very dutifully ignored the rest of the lecture, sketching out Sco again in his proper sketchbook. But it was different now. Now he had the man’s face hidden away in his head, and he was perfect for the part. He drew his rough form, broad shoulders and tapered waist and long legs, only to hide him away behind the uniform. No leather vest, no webbing, no brodie helmet, just the man.

The man as Sco.

At the front of the lecture hall, the woman finished her part, the class clapping quietly for her as she moved over to allow for the man to stand beside her. She smiled broadly at the group and said, “Alright, well, we’ve bored you lot long enough. Does anyone have any questions about special collections?”

Tom’s hand flew up.

It took ages for her to finally point to him in the back of the room, and Tom tried not to be disappointed when the man’s eyes didn’t turn to him when he asked, “Are there any volunteer opportunities at the archives?”

On stage, the woman smiled even wider, rattling off ways for students to volunteer. Around him, his friends all shoved at him, questioning looks at his weird request. But the man’s eyes scanned the room, blinking slowly as he took in the faces of Tom’s classmates and overlooking him tucked far in the back. Tom fought every urge in him not to wave his hands over his head in a desperate attempt to get his attention.

 _Look at me,_ Tom chanted mentally as the woman moved on to the next question. _I’m right here._

He never saw Tom. Never even got close.

“Everyone, that’s our time today. Please give another hand to our guests from the Special Collections department, Purnima Jondalar and William Schofield,” the professor said as he gestured to them on stage. The class clapped again, even more lacklustre this time as everyone moved out of the lecture hall.

Tom bit at his lip, desperate to keep his nervous laughter in. The coincidence of his name sat oddly in his stomach for moment, but what was in a name, really? Sco was just as made up as Schofield would have been once upon a time. Just a coincidence. Just as strange a mystery as seeing Sco's face and form on some stranger, but just as wonderful in its serendipity.

“Hey, you all go on ahead,” Tom said as his friends stood around him.

“What are you up to?” Lucy asked as she slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, standing over Tom still in his seat.

He laughed gently, trying to wave away her questioning tone. “Oh, nothing much.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jovin sighed.

After making sure they were actually milling out of the hall with the rest of their class, Tom flipped open his notebook, jotting down his name and school info as quickly as possible, desperate to catch the man before he left.

Luckily, he was still on the stage when Tom made it up to them.

He was even more striking up close, the texture of his hair and the colour of his eyes far more apparent at this distance. Even more handsome _._

Tom took a deep breath and stepped in front of them both. “Hey, I was the one asking about volunteering? I wanted to pass on my name,” he said with as much confidence as he had buried in him, settling into his most broad, charming smile. His hand was just a little shaky as he held out the little slip of paper to the man. To William Schofield.

He blinked back at Tom, a look of confusion passing over his eyes before his face went very carefully blank. His eyes seemed to stare straight through Tom as he gingerly took the paper from his hand. Their fingers didn’t brush, flowers didn’t appear in the air, music didn’t play like in those romance animes that Tom pretended not to love, but it felt more significant somehow. Like he could see all the way down into the most tucked away, secret parts of Tom’s heart, could pick apart all of his most guarded, unsure feelings.

“Thank you,” the woman, Purnima, said, breaking them both from the moment. Breaking the sharp lines between their eyes. The world seemed to flood back into Tom’s brain, the silence of their connection dissolving like maybe it had never happened at all.

“Okay, cool,” Tom said, glancing between them now. He backed up with a tiny, awkward wave. “I’ll see you ‘round, then? Cheers.”

He practically sprinted from the room, the pressure in his chest returning. William Schofield had _looked_ at him, had _seen_ him. Tom leaned against the wall outside of the lecture hall, grinning up at the ceiling like a complete loon. As he let his breathing return to normal, his fingers dug around his bag to pull out the drawing in his sketchbook, half-finished and rough. It was perfect.

He’d finally gotten Sco right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, again! I want to thank everyone for being so lovely and patient while I worked on this. Life is very weird right now, but this fandom has been magic. Extra special thanks goes out to yonderlight for giving me full permission to be as self-indulgent as possible with this thing, and to everyone who commented, kudo'ed, and shared AKW in any way. I love you all ♡♡


	2. Chapter 2

Tom received a simple, matter-of-fact email the next morning. There was absolutely nothing personal about it, nothing to indicate that Tom hadn’t just made up the feeling that punched through his chest when their eyes connected. But there was still a thrill knowing that he knew Tom’s name, that he would potentially remember him.

It was signed _Will Schofield._

Dropping his mobile onto the pillow next to his head, Tom curled even more into his blankets. Everything felt warm. “Will Schofield,” he mumbled to himself, testing out the sounds on his tongue. There was something about it, the shape of it.

Tom had never been a poet, had always struggled to make his words contained and pretty and neat, but he felt like maybe he could write a sonnet by weaving together their names.

“Hey, so, what should you do if you feel a connection with someone you’ve just met?” Tom asked the room that night. He was laying across the lounge room floor, the couches and stuffed chairs filled with his housemates, all in various states over the house-wide Mario Kart tournament that would determine who needed to buy groceries for the week. Tom had been quietly removed from the roster, having bought last week.

“Like love at first sight?” Mark asked.

“I mean, I guess so,” Tom said slowly, shrugging as he sat up to look around the group while their eyes were still glued to the telly.

Paola tipped back her head and laughed as her kart crossed the finish line. “Don’t be fucking daft, Blake, love is a chemical reaction that takes time to develop,” she said, leaning over to high five Jovin who finished second.

“Wait, though?” Mark sat up, squinting over at her. “If it’s just a reaction, then, like, you can react whenever. Chemicals react whenever, right? So, maybe your love chemicals are already reacting and someone just, like, happens to walk by. Love at first sight, right?” He looked around the group for confirmation.

“Dude, never take chemistry,” Jovin sighed.

“Here’s an actual answer,” Alfie said as they slipped down to sit next to Tom on the floor. “Lust at first sight happens all the time. You see someone, you like what you see, done. But love is a connection, it goes way deeper than that.”

Tom nodded, but he couldn’t shake the way Will Schofield’s eyes felt on him. Like they had a physical weight, like they were dragging all of Tom’s secrets to the surface.

“This is about that librarian, isn’t it?” Lucy asked as she pulled a controller from Paola, clicking over the menu slowly. She selected Daisy on the screen and turned to Tom with a mischievous smile. “God, you really are a romantic, this is hilarious. No, you’re not in love with him.”

Sitting up, Tom scowled at the group as they all turned to ogle him. “You all can fucking stuff it. Of course I _know_ I’m not in love, I’m not an _idiot_. I wasn’t even asking about love in the first place,” he huffed.

“Great, we totally believe you. Now, let’s review who this librarian is and what this connection is precisely?” Alfie asked, a deep smirk on their face.

“He’s just some guy,” Jovin said with a shrug. “He was a bit boring, actually.”

Tom scowled harder.

“I mean, I thought he was pretty hot, I don’t know.” Mark tapped his chin, looking into the middle distance. “I’d say, yeah, go for it. You’re not out much if he’s not, like, into it, you know?”

Lucy poked at Tom’s shoulder with her socked foot. “Just please don’t stalk him. None of us can afford to bail you out of jail, and you’re far too pretty for prison.”

“Fantastic, thanks for the support,” Tom sighed, flopping back down onto the rug.

“Imagine, though,” Alfie murmured, just low enough for only Tom to really hear as the rest of the group turned back to their game. “Imagine feeling any kind of instant connection with literally anything. Sounds fucking amazing.”

Nodding, Tom smiled over at Alfie. It did feel pretty fucking amazing, like maybe gravity had thrown him up in the air, and he’d lost track of the ground.

It had taken a few days to get everything ironed out, but Tom was here, quickly getting a run-down on volunteer activities by an older librarian early on a Wednesday afternoon. Everything smelled a bit dusty in here, like a library should in his mind. All of the information she relayed sort of flew over his head as his eyes swam around the cubicles around them, desperate to see him.

“What made you interested in volunteering here at the Special Collections and Archives?” the librarian asked offhandedly when she led him through the maze of desks in the large, shared office space.

 _Will Schofield_ , Tom’s brain supplied for him. But that was just what his brain was like now, just a concert hall of thoughts devoted to Will Schofield. The lines and planes of his face, the way he gestured when he’d been talking to the group, the stillness when he finally, _finally_ looked at Tom. He kept telling himself that he was only here to look. Kept telling himself not to project what he wanted onto some poor, unsuspecting stranger. Kept telling himself that it was stupid to hope that Will Schofield had any reason to look back at him, but he wanted him to.

He wanted Will Schofield to look at him so badly that he was here, sacrificing the prime study hours in the middle of the week in the hopes that maybe there was a slim chance that the stillness of Will Schofield when they’d looked at each other meant something.

“I’m a history major,” Tom said instead, shooting his winningest smile in her direction. The librarian chuckled, clearly charmed. “Primary sources are pretty important to the field and all that, so it just made sense,” he parroted what little had registered of Will Schofield’s speech to his class.

“Couldn’t agree more!” the librarian said as she paused at a doorway just down the hall from the offices. She peeked inside and said, “Ah, here’s some people worth knowing.”

It was clearly the break room by the large, round table and the smell of food that hit his nose as he stepped into the room. He recognized Purnima immediately sitting next to another woman as they turned to look up at Tom, but his eyes slid right over them to land on him. Will Schofield’s posture shifted when their eyes met.

There was a kind of gravity to Will Schofield that made it hard for Tom to stay standing. Made it hard for Tom to hold his breath, desperate to know what his name sounded like on Will Schofield’s tongue. He was already forgetting what Sco used to sound like, used to look like before Tom had seen Will Schofield, looking every bit like he’d crawled out of a childhood dream.

But Tom managed to wrangle his heart into place, just grinning like an idiot at the stoic set of Will Schofield’s face.

Everything about this scenario was confusing, one of those weird anomalies that his mum thought was so interesting, another odd, little mysteries that clogged the world like leaves caught in a grate. But history was full of coincidences. Maybe this was Tom’s personal mystery of his own.

He checked back in just as he heard the librarian tell Will Schofield, “Fantastic. Once we’re done with the grand tour of the place, I’ll hand Tom off to you, then, let you show him the ropes.”

A wonderful coincidence, he thought with a grin.

There was something exciting about it, though. A strange kind of anticipation that Tom couldn’t place the source of as he tried to be patient as they continued their tour of the collections, like he’d found something that he had forgotten he’d lost. That had to be it, really. He’d sorted through so many reference photos, trying to find anyone at all that looked like Sco that finally stumbling upon the perfect face, the perfect body, the perfect aura was kind of crazy. He had been so past expecting it that it was just exciting to have now. That _had_ to be the connection he’d felt, the cord that pulled him back to Will Schofield.

As he peeked into the room that he’d been told Will Schofield was working in, his fingers itched for a pencil, for paper, for some excuse to stare at Will Schofield’s face forever. “Uh, Mr. Schofield?” he said. A brilliant start.

“Will,” he corrected him immediately.

 _Will,_ Tom’s brain echoed, feeling giddy and stupid and reckless.

He seemed almost skittish in Tom’s presence, his eyes darting around the room but struggling to land on him. Tom chewed on his lip as he tried his best to be helpful. The book that Will was bent over was old, the paper yellowed and frail, filled with cramped handwriting.

“I’m attempting to decipher the marginalia,” he explained, pointing over his shoulder at a projected version of the book, blown up huge on the blank wall.

“Oh, cool, reading. I can handle that,” Tom joked. He watched Will’s face carefully, hoping to catch faint hints of humour hidden behind his carefully controlled facial expressions, but there were no cracks in his armour. Yet. Tom ran his fingers along the side seams of his joggers as he thought, his brain split between squinting at the handwriting on the wall and trying to find anything interesting and funny enough to break through Will’s façade.

Sco was funny in his own strange way. Sco laughed at Tom, gently and kindly, most of the time, but he still laughed. Will seemed cut off from that. Timid.

But, ultimately, it was some random question about his job that Tom threw out, desperate to hear Will’s voice again that did the trick. His face almost transformed when he smiled, his laughter a bit low and breathy, his cheeks flushing gently. Like the sun peeking past the clouds on a grey day.

Tom decided, watching Will talk with a smile on his face, a genuine smile, for the first time, that he would do about anything to keep Will Schofield smiling.

“I met someone,” Tom said, pulling the mobile from his ear just a little as he grinned up at sky, strolling across campus towards home. His sister’s startled shriek still made him wince despite knowing it was coming.

“Oh my god, you lucky bastard, tell me _everything,_ ” she cried.

Laughing, Tom let the image of Will form behind his eyes, let his brain wander over and around the planes of his face, settle into the line of his shoulders, spread itself down the length of his legs. “God, Sarah, he’s perfect. Bloody perfect,” he sighed. “He was a guest lecturer for one of my classes, I’m potentially stalking him now, and we’ll me married in, oh, say four, five months.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Sarah giggled, and Tom could picture the way she was likely scrunching up her nose as she spoke. “How does he stack up to Soldier Sco?”

Tom’s stomach dropped.

He should have known that this would be her first question, in fact it usually was whenever Tom brought up anyone at all. But he’d been so lost in the high of finding Will that he’d forgotten that Sco wasn’t just a mainstay of his own childhood, he’d been a companion to Sarah through Tom’s pictures and stories and daydreams.

Sco had sort of bled all over Tom’s life. He was everywhere, really. Tom couldn’t help but wonder if seeing Sco echoed in someone real was just an extension of that.

“He stacks up pretty damn well,” Tom mumbled. In his ear, Sarah made a tiny noise of surprise, used to him complaining her question away until he was forced to admit that no one had ever really compared to Sco. Not until now.

Not until William Schofield.

It was strange, really. When he looked back at those memories, of Sco leaning against the lone tree on the edge of the schoolyard, of Sco reaching out to him, of Sco looking back over his shoulder, all of that had been twisted around almost overnight. Every single one of those memories was painted with Will Schofield’s face now. It just _fit_.

Humming along to Sarah’s voice excitedly talking in his ear, he knew he should be worried. He should be concerned that he was plaiting together his childhood obsession with a very real person, but everything lined up so well. And it wasn’t like he expected Will to be like Sco, really (even though everything Tom had seen so far showed that he _was_ very much like Sco), it was just that he fit all of the ideals Tom had dreamed up in his head so many years ago. Like Pygmalion or something, the creation made real with love.

Tom shook his head and pressed his hand over his eyes. _Lovely, little coincidence_ , he reminded himself. Nothing but a coincidence.

As much as Tom told himself that he wasn’t going back every Wednesday just to pretend like Sco was real for a minute, he was a tiny bit shocked to realize that he wasn’t actually lying to himself. He was sitting on a stool opposite Will at one of the work tables, photographs spread across the top, watching the expressions dance across Will’s face as he yammered on about his housemates, and it hit: he wanted to look at Will, definitely, but he also very much wanted to _know_ Will, wanted to feel Will. Just sort of generally wanted Will. Not because he was like Sco, but because he was like _Will._

It was kind of a massive thought.

Tom had spent most of the afternoon carting file boxes from one storage room to the next, helping Judith clear out space for a new classroom. Judith was one of the good ones, a favourite of his along with Purnima with her digital projects and Charlie with his machine repairs. They were easy to chat with, helped pass the time nicely, usually had something interesting for Tom to do. But he knew he was getting a bit of a reputation for the way he’d always end up trailing behind Will before the day was over.

Luckily, Will seemed either to not care or not notice the gossip. Tom would wander in, an entire week’s worth of conversation topics piled up in his head, ready to amuse Will as best he could in the maybe twenty minutes he’d get before he had to watch Will walk off towards home. Alone. Without Tom.

He’d promised Lucy that he wasn’t going to stalk Will, but the temptation was there.

Blinking a few times, Will glanced up at Tom with a sceptical look as he described the epic battles for the telly some nights. “How many flatmates do you have?” he asked as he set the stack of photographs in his hands down carefully, the shape of his fingers distracting Tom for a solid moment. He was wearing white gloves, and it just made everything about his hands _more._

“There’s seven of us,” Tom shrugged, trying not to grin at the look of surprise on Will’s face. “But Chris is more like the ghost that haunts the place than anything else. Except he _does_ pay rent, so he’s at least got that going for him.”

Will’s face went a little still as he asked, “How can a person be like a ghost?”

Leaning in, Tom smiled over his curiosity, desperate to know what the fuck made Will’s face move that way but just as desperate not to make him uncomfortable. “So, Paola has this theory, right? She thinks he’s secretly in a gang, running drugs or some shit, because we have no idea where he is during the day. But Alfie’s got this other theory that he’s potentially fully nocturnal, because he doesn’t seem to ever sleep at night? That or he sleeps with the telly on.”

“I sleep with the telly on all the time, that’s not weird,” Will shrugged. But he shifted oddly, his shoulders going a little tense. Defensive maybe. It reminded Tom oddly of those times when he’d annoy Sco, his demeanour snapping when Tom would push too far.

“I didn’t say it was, just that he doesn’t seem to sleep much,” Tom mumbled, uncertain of how to diffuse the tension on Will’s brows. This topic of conversation was decidedly not working out as planned, veering away from the joking back and forth that he’d been hoping to have with Will. But he watched him just as hungrily, wishing that he could perfectly capture every expression that crossed Will’s face.

Will nodded, eyes cast down to the photographs again. After a long, suspended moment, he asked, “So, what’s your theory, then?”

Pushing out his lips, Tom hummed and tilted his head to the side as he thought. “He’s a vampire. Thousand percent,” he said with conviction, going with the stupidest answer his brain could pull on short notice.

But it worked, a startled giggle escaping from Will’s lips even as he clearly tried to bite back his smile. “What kind are we going with here? The Nosferatu kind that actually look like bats, the classic Dracula, or one of those stupid film vampires that are still in secondary school for literally no reason?” Will asked. He leaned forward over the photographs, careful, always careful of the items he worked on, to smirk at Tom.

 _This_. This was Tom’s favourite thing. His stupid stories and endless chatter finding one of the loose threads in Will’s outer layer and gently pulling it back. Those little glimpses of what lay underneath were what played through Tom’s mind as he closed his eyes, tangled up with Sco so much that he was worried that he was going to lose sight of where Sco ended and Will began, where his imagination met real life. But none of that really mattered right now, not when this was as close to flirting as they were likely ever going to get.

“Oh, definitely option three,” Tom replied, letting himself pretend for a moment that he could have this fantasy. That Will waited all week, saving up stories and thoughts to share with him on Wednesdays. That maybe Will wanted to take a little more of Tom back with him every time they left each other behind.

Tom was laying on his stomach across his bed, his head dangling over the edge to scan the notes he’d spread across his floor. Not for the first time, he wished that he could speed read or had a photographic memory or something, _anything_ to prepare for sitting an exam. That or he’d decided to follow a completely different major that didn’t require him to cram a million unrelated dates into his head every other minute.

When he sighed deeply, he sent his notes fluttering.

“Yo, Blake,” Paola called from the hall, her only prelude to knocking open his door. “This weekend, we’re taking you out for birthday drinks,” she informed him.

“What if I die first?” he groaned, gesturing to his notes.

“Then we’ll take out your ghost,” she shrugged. “You should invite out your librarian while we’re at it. You’ll never be as confident as you are when you’re getting pissed off your arse, so maybe you can finally get lucky and have a good excuse why you won’t shut the fuck up about him.”

Tom scrambled up, staring at her with wide eyes. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever fucking heard! I can’t let all of you loose with him around! He’s…he’s an _adult._ ” Tom waved his arms as he tried to assemble his thoughts into any type of order. “And we haven’t even known each other for that long, and we barely know each other, and I don’t think he’s even the party kind of bloke, and I’m like 87 percent sure that he isn’t even interested in me—romantically _or_ platonically, and—"

“Invite him anyway,” Paola interrupted. “He’s the only thing you’ve talked about for weeks, and I need to confirm with my own eyes whether he’s worth your time. And he better be, because this is legitimately worse than your obsession with that damn _My Academy of Heroes_ show you watched last year.”

“ _My Hero Academia,”_ Tom corrected quietly.

“Just fucking ask him, or I’ll do it myself,” she shot back, levelling him with a dry, unimpressed stare before turning on her heel and marching back down the hall.

Tom stared at the doorway, wondering what the hell he should do next. He had a plan, not a very good one, but a plan all the same. It all began with the library, with finding Will at the end of the day and making him smile that sunshine smile of his. Then, maybe eventually Will would pick up on Tom’s quiet comments about being hungry after all that work, would say something like, “ _Oh, yeah, I know a great place, we should go now,”_ and they’d laugh through the whole meal. Then, as they were leaving, Tom would say, _“This was so great, we should come back,”_ and Will would say, _“I’d like that.”_ Then…that’s were things got a bit foggy, but somehow, they’d end up making out in the back of a taxi or something and then they’d be boyfriends. Done.

This night of drinks was _not_ in the plan. Exposing Will to his loud, teasing friends who loved to see him squirm (not that he didn’t dole it right back at them, but whatever), drunken shenanigans, embarrassment? Not the plan.

“Shit,” Tom sighed, falling back on his bed.

In the back of his mind, he could just make out Sco laughing at him. Will’s laughter dressed up as Sco’s.

Every time they saw each other, it got harder and harder for Tom to be satisfied with the fantasies he spun up to fill in the white noise behind all the things Will didn’t say. He really should have been an old pro at this point, living so long with the image of Sco hanging over his shoulder, but there must have been something about the glow of Will’s presence that made Tom greedy.

Maybe his greed had something to do with the way Will seemed to thaw when Tom would wander in, like one of those time lapse videos of flowers blooming, all pretty and soft.

He forced himself to focus on that as he mentally readied himself to ask Will out for drinks. Will seemed to welcome Tom’s talking and storytelling and chattering, laughing along with Tom’s retelling of the stupidity that was his 20th Century history class debates. Tom felt like the centre of the universe when Will was looking at him with so much amusement.

The way his hand leaned against Tom’s shoulder as he laughed was nothing short of fucking fantastic.

But Tom was still a bit of a coward, the question sitting on his tongue as he watched Will pack up photographs and prints with careful fingers, as they strolled towards the break room, as he watched Will’s face from the corner of his eye. So cowardly that he blurted out, “Hey, you think Purnima’s still around?” instead of the real question he needed to ask.

Will shrugged and threw Tom a curious look. “Probably. Do you have something to ask her?”

Grasping for an answer, Tom improvised, “Yeah, I was hoping to catch her before now, but she was with Joanne when I came in, and I didn’t fancy inviting her, too.”

“Inviting her to what?” Will asked softly just as they rounded into the breakroom.

Purnima was standing by the lockers, waving her arm gently as she pulling on the sleeve of her jacket, and said, “Evening, boys. There something worth being invited to?”

“I mean, I hope so,” Tom answered, glad to have a buffer between him and Will for once. Purnima was outgoing, she would be worth inviting anyways, but she’d also be a lot more inclined to come along for drinks. All things that he couldn’t say about Will. “So, my mates are taking me out for my birthday this weekend. Figured I’d ask you both along.”

“Ooh, sign me up!” she squealed, already holding out her mobile. “It’s been literal ages since I had a proper night out! Add your number, and I promise I’ll drag Will along.”

“Cool,” Tom managed to say without glancing furtively in Will’s direction. When he did chance a look at Will, he could feel his jitters returning. “So, do you want my number, too? It’s not a problem if you’re busy or don’t feel like coming or—”

“No, I’ll come,” Will replied immediately.

Tom felt strangely like he was the one who froze this time, watching in disbelief as Will dug out a mobile that looked near pristine. He had been split for weeks on whether Will had a mobile or not, too practical to buy something that he didn’t have much use for, but too realistic to travel without one. Yet, here it was, Will’s mobile in his hand, Tom’s number saved to it.

For all of the weeks of stupid stories and mooning over Will’s smiles, this felt like progress.

Will was standing outside of the bar with Purnima when Tom’s group rounded the corner. He’d spent hours beforehand panicking over this exact second, the moment where the various parts of his life crashed together. It wasn’t like he was trying to put up a front or anything, but he was a tiny bit worried that Will would be off put by the blatant lameness of his life, the rowdiness of his friends, the complete and utter lack of class he had.

But none of that mattered, because Will smiled when he saw Tom. Everything else could fuck off for a second, that was really all Tom needed right now.

Will fell into step with him as they filed inside following the chaotic introductions to the group. Tom had been a tiny bit worried that everyone would overwhelm Will in their curiosity, but Purnima was a shining gold saviour, drawing everyone’s attention away with her laughter. He silently thanked the universe for her.

“Your hair’s different,” Will mentioned just before the noise of the bar washed over them.

“Yeah,” Tom said over the din. “Just, you know. Bit of an occasion.”

“It looks good,” he replied, smile just a little tight as they navigated through the crowd. It wasn’t really that much of a compliment, positive in a fairly neutral way. Bordering on something a grandparent or something might say, but Tom would take whatever he could get. He’d gladly grovel for Will’s smiles and mild compliments, anything to feel like maybe Will had singled him out.

He was pushed into a seat across from Will, all of his friends between them with Purnima happily relating stories, and he kind of couldn’t tell if this was a dream or a minor nightmare. Will looked so awkward, clearly trying to seem natural despite the tiny crease between his brows.

Tom tried not to stare, but everyone knew.

They knew why his hair was swept back with product, why he was wearing a real shirt instead of a tee, why he kept laughing even when nothing funny was happening. It wasn’t like it was a secret or anything, not when he couldn’t fucking shut up about Will. About his job, his stories, his laugh, his hair. He’d drawn about a million pictures of his face and his hands and his _everything_ , had plastered his notebooks with remnants of Will and filled in all of the gaps he could with nothing but Will Schofield.

Well, all of the gaps that Sco had left behind, at least.

This was the first time Tom had seen Will outside the very careful and controlled confines of the library, the first time that they were in each other’s company by choice instead of because of his volunteer schedule. This was supposed to be _fun_ , but Tom found himself so distracted by Will’s obvious aversion to crowds that he couldn’t relax—even as he threw back whatever alcohol was placed in front of him.

“Will isn’t what I was expecting at all,” Alfie said, tapping their chin as they waited for the bartender to finish pouring their next round of drinks. “You make him out as the most magnetic, charming person, but he’s just sort of…”

“This isn’t his scene, he can’t help that,” Tom replied defensively.

Shaking their head, Alfie continued, “I get that. I was meaning that he seems so _tight_. Like he’s so knotted up that you can’t pick him apart anymore. He’s a project. I just wasn’t expecting you to be into that.”

Tom blinked slowly. Glancing over his shoulder, he chanced the quickest glimpse of Will. He was sat between Paola and some friends Tom had made last year, looking rather sombre and removed from the bright, technicoloured bar around him. Everything about him seemed a little incongruous, looking for all the world like he was about to head to work with his standard oxford shirt. But he was wearing _jeans_. The concept seemed sort of odd, as if the parallel Tom had drawn in his mind between Will and Sco made it seem like he belonged in the past, belonged in soft, woollen jumpers and bracers and pleated trousers.

“I can’t explain it,” Tom mumbled when he finally tore his eyes from Will. It wasn’t like he could tell Alfie about Sco and not sound like a crazy person, but it was more than that now. This was rapidly becoming something completely else. “I don’t know. I guess I just like how I feel when he’s looking at me. Like he’s really seeing me, you know?”

“Hmm, what’s that line? ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,’” Alfie sighed wistfully.

“I mean, not quite” Tom shrugged as they carried their drinks back to the table. He’d never believed in love at first sight or fate or anything, thought that it oversimplified the randomness of the universe and human emotion. No, this had been building in his chest for weeks now, this desperate need to be better, more charming, more interesting, more _everything_ whenever he was around Will.

He didn’t really like the idea that they were one, he just liked the thought that they could maybe be a “we,” an “us” someday.

The group kept shifting as the night wore on, but somehow Will always stayed opposite him at the table, looking a bit wan and uncomfortable even though he smiled whenever he caught Tom’s eye. The only way he could tell that Will had anything to drink at all was the colour high in his cheeks that grew pinker and prettier after every round.

Tom had sort of transitioned out of using colour in his illustrations, but he would do about anything to smear soft pink across paper. To layer the tangle of shades to get that perfect not quite blond, not quite brown, not quite ginger that was Will’s hair. To mix together the spectrum of sky and ocean that was Will’s eyes. His brain was absolutely swimming with colours as it fuzzed over with alcohol, enamoured with the way the lights threw Will’s colours into disarray as they shifted overhead.

This was dangerous territory, but Tom was too drunk to be afraid. Not when he got to slip into the seat next to Will and look into the colours bleeding across his face.

And when Will’s shoulders finally relaxed when he laughed at Tom’s inane chatter, his smile slipping warm and soft across his face, Tom knew that he was more than willing to drown in this. Whatever it was.

Tom couldn’t really be sure how he’d gotten here, the gentle fog of alcohol blurring then and now. One minute he was on the street outside the bar, head swimming, Will _beaming_ , just flat out shining under the glow of streetlamps, the next he was sitting on the floor of Will’s lounge room, surrounded by his books and clutter and his scent. The feeling of gravity losing hold of him had returned, and a huge part of him wondered if he’d fallen asleep at the bar and dreamt up this lovely turn of his night.

It was all a little too reminiscent of the foggy patches in all of his careful plans to feel real, the muddled unknown between all of the shit Tom was pulling and the elusive next step. And it wasn’t like the flat itself was helping, looking exactly like he assumed Will’s flat would. There were bookcases lining the lounge room, a few faded photographs and postcards hanging on the walls in-between. He’d even spied a few old cameras tucked into some of the bookshelves. It was like a museum of things that mattered to Will, but with none of the little placards telling Tom why they were here.

He wondered if Will would ever give him the chance to write those himself.

Beside him, Will was leaning back against the couch, eyes fixed on the telly as he chewed on his beans and toast. It was so normal and casual, like this was just a thing they did now.

“I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised that your taste is this cheap and cheery,” Tom said as he lifted his plate in a type of mock salute.

“What’s wrong with beans and toast?” Will asked, looking almost betrayed for a moment. His upper lip thinned as he frowned, an expression that Tom swore he recognized from Sco. But that was silly, he knew that he was just twisting the two images in his head again.

“Nothing’s wrong with beans and toast, it’s just not, like, _classy,_ ” Tom responded, shoving his thoughts aside clumsily.

Will frowned still deeper, and Tom had to fight to keep himself from pressing his fingertips against the corners of Will’s mouth. “I’m not entirely sure where you got this idea that I like classy foods from. Cooking’s just a hassle most of the time,” he said, stopping just short of rolling his eyes.

“That’s utter shit, and you know it. You get _food_ at the end of cooking, that’s the best.”

“Sure,” Will shrugged, taking another bite of his toast. “It’s just a hassle when it’s only for me.” There was something so offhand about the way he said it, like it wasn’t a horribly lonesome thing to say.

Tom tipped his head back against the couch cushions, watching the way Will’s face moved here in this safe space, tucked far from the outside world. Here where he didn’t hide away his feelings one piece at a time until it was just the calm, controlled look he usually had. There was so much he didn’t know about this man, about his life and his pains, but, Jesus Christ, he wanted. He _wanted_ so badly to know, to push past the mask Will wore for the rest of the world, to hold Will’s heart gently and carefully against his own.

Sometime between the end of _Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares_ and Tom replying to about a million messages from his housemates and Purnima, Will’s breathing had slowed with sleep, laying curled into himself on the couch cushions. Tom let his hand hover over his cheek, uncertain of what he wanted to feel.

This was probably just like with Sco, Tom’s hands reaching out for something to hold onto without really knowing what he wanted. The difference was that Will could actually reach back. Hopefully, someday, maybe he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tom's narration is a bit wordy, I swear this chapter almost doubled in size between the draft and all of my edits! But he's a sweetheart, so I'll forgive him.  
> I hope all of you lovely people are staying safe and doing well!


	3. Chapter 3

“Sorry again for inadvertently making you sleep on the floor last night,” Will said as he watched Tom tie his trainers. His hair was a mess, all volume and the hint of wave, and his cheeks were still full from sleep, and everything about him was just pretty. It would take oil paints and years of careful study to create a portrait worthy of the sight of Will looking so soft and comfortable.

Tom shrugged his apology off easily, replying, “I’ve slept in worse places, it’s really no big deal.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” The corner of Will’s mouth ticked up just a little, the hint of sarcasm colouring his words. When Tom laughed, his smile deepened like this was a thing they did now. Laughing in the entryway to his flat, chatting about “last night,” wearing yesterday’s clothes, the echo of Will’s face so full of wonder at the sight of Tom cooking them breakfast bouncing around his mind. Nothing had happened, really, but if Tom squinted, he could let himself imagine for a moment that maybe things could be like this if something _had_.

The image formed so clearly in his head. Saturday mornings spent with Will looking rumpled as he stumbled into the kitchen, Tom making breakfast, the two of them existing together in the golden light before the world needed anything from them.

When he straightened, Tom took an extra heartbeat to smile up at Will’s face, letting the fantasy settle into his heart for safekeeping before sweeping it away like the silly musings he knew they were. “I guess you’ll just have to find some way to forgive yourself for this injustice,” Tom sighed, leaning back against the front door as Will laughed.

“Truly, how can I ever make amends,” Will replied. As he shifted over, Tom caught a glimpse of his jacket hanging haphazardly off the door to the hall cupboard. A flag screaming, _TOM BLAKE WAS HERE!_ to anyone who entered.

Including Will.

In his imagination, he could envision Will leaving for work on Monday morning, but stopping when he saw Tom’s jacket. He would naturally think of Tom. He would _obviously_ think about Tom after seeing the jacket whenever he came or left. He would think about Tom, even though he wasn’t here, would think about how to return the jacket to him.

Tom felt his heart lifting.

With a lingering smile on his face, Tom walked home, cold and jacketless, but very, wonderfully excited for next Wednesday.

So excited that he hadn’t even bothered to prepare for the onslaught of questions and pestering that waited for him as he strolled in from the cool autumn morning. As if she had been lying in wait, Lucy practically leapt at Tom as he wandered into the lounge room.

“Oh my god, tell me _everything!_ ” she cried, shaking Tom by the shoulders.

“Seriously, congrats on tapping that,” Mark said under Lucy’s shrieking. He leaned over the back of one of the couches to make eye contact with Tom, a sleepy smile on his face. “Your man’s a total brick wall, I’m honestly impressed that you’ve had entire conversations with him, let alone talking your way into his pants. I have no idea how you did it, but wow, great work.”

Tom managed to duck around Lucy’s arms and replied, “Thanks, but nothing much happened. We just watched a bit of telly, talked a bit, fell asleep. It was nice, but in a, you know, friend kind of way.”

“Oh, Blake, you poor idiot,” Paola yawned, shuffling past them on her way to the kitchen in her massive pikachu slippers. “You really are fucking gone for him, aren’t you?”

Their eyes all turned to Tom, endless unspoken questions hitting him at once.

But all he felt was the lingering warmth of Will’s smiles and the traces of him buried in every corner of his flat. The flat that Purnima joked just last week could be imaginary for all she had seen of it. He’d been let into something sacred, and Tom had every intention of returning the favour.

“Yeah, I really am,” he sighed.

Fuck all of the old plans, Tom had accidentally put a far better one in motion. Will was private, almost skittish, clearly not the type to rush things, but Tom had already slipped in while no one was watching. Like a stray cat through the back window. It was only a matter of time before…Well, he wasn’t sure, but it felt promising, and that was something.

Tom did his best to play it cool when the next Wednesday arrived, to bite back any staged questions about his jacket and where it ended up, hoping and hoping that maybe Will would bring it up himself. He’d spent most of his time since last seeing Will dreaming up different scenarios and mapping out the ways that they would lead to…something. His actual sketchbook, the nice one he’d gotten for his birthday last year from his mum, had been added to substantially as he daydreamed. After filling page after page with images of Will as Sco for weeks previous—stoic as he stood looking out over the distance or focused as he fed bullets into their clips or tender as he tipped open the little blue tin that lived in his breast pocket just over his heart—he found himself simply drawing Will now.

For all of his rehearsal, Tom felt at a loss for how to even bring up the subject of his jacket when he pulled his bag from the locker just outside the main reading room. Will seemed normal as ever as he waited on Tom.

“Hey, so, uh,” Tom began, his voice sounding oddly high pitched to his own ears. “I think I may have left my jacket at your place?”

“Yes. That,” Will said, almost offhandedly. Like maybe he’d forgotten. Tom could feel his heart sinking to his knees even as he plastered over his nerves with an easy smile. The point had been for Will to remember him, to have a piece of him where it mattered most. But as Tom tried to organize his stupid feelings, an odd thing happened: Will’s cheeks flushed as he pushed back his hair. Self-conscious, maybe even nervous, Will continued, “I figured that, if you’re not busy, you could pick it up now. I don’t live far.”

Tom felt his smile growing. Success.

When he’d been a kid, he’s always imagined Sco walking next to him as he raced to and from school, liked to think of him standing tall and quiet beside him at intersections. There’d been a sense that Tom belonged there in Sco’s invisible shadow. Walking next to Will, Tom wished he could send this feeling back to his younger self, assure him that yes, it very much felt as right as he had hoped.

There was a sense of anonymity that came with living in the city, like Tom could be anyone and no one all at the same time. The people he passed were as faceless as he was to them. But there was something safe about that feeling with Will by his side, buried underneath all of his pining and dreaming about lives he couldn’t live. Comforting having him so close.

In his excited state, Tom found himself chattering more than usual, filling up the space around them with descriptions of his housemates, of his classes and professors, of secondary school. Things he knew should be boring, but Will was smiling, smiling like it was easy and simple to be standing with Tom as they watched the trains rumbling by.

“That’s the thing with most teachers, right? If you just swear casually enough, they won’t even notice,” Tom explained as he watched Will dig his keys from his bag.

“Please tell me that you’re speaking from experience,” Will said as he held open the door.

Tom bit his lip, trying to hide a grin that he knew would look loopy as hell. “Oh, the _most_ experience, who do you think I am?” Tom joked back. There had to be some reason why Tom needed to stay a little longer, and he had to find one _immediately_. He stepped on the backs of his shoes, pulling them off without bending over, a silent cue that he planned on staying. Not too presumptuous, but also a little telling. He hoped.

Will froze for a second as a strange shadow passed over his eyes for a second before the ice broke and his grin relaxed. “I was going to make tea, if you wanted some,” he mentioned as Tom dropped his bag on the floor.

“Sure.” Tom dug out a random notebook, trying not to be too weird about settling into the flat too quickly. But there was a kind of quiet that lived here, like the kind he felt when he was around Will. Like life had slowed gently to let Tom rest for a minute, to catch his breath and let the world fall away. Right now, there was only the sounds of Will clattering around the kitchen, the slant of light catching the spines of the books lined up on the many bookshelves, the feeling of the pen in Tom’s hand.

It reminded him of being a child, a little, sitting with Sco while he waited. He had long since forgotten what Sco was waiting for, but Tom wondered if maybe he’d found something better in the meantime.

“Do you still have work to do?” Will asked as he slid a green mug onto the couch table in front of Tom. He nodded to the notebook, the pen in Tom’s hand.

“Oh, yeah, just a bit,” he shrugged in return, grateful that Will had given him a convenient excuse for everything when he’d really just been wanting to sketch out the rough shapes of Will’s world. Flipping the pen, Tom smiled up sheepishly. “I can go do that at my place, though. No need for me to bother you.”

Reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, Will looked down into his cup of tea and said softly, “I wasn’t trying to chase you out or anything. You can work for as long as you need to.”

The air around Tom suddenly felt a little warmer, a little brighter. Will was quiet about things, gave very little of himself away, but maybe he gave more than Tom had given him credit for. Considering how private the space around them felt, Will might as well have said that Tom could move in. _God, please,_ Tom found himself wishing, memorizing the exact way Will’s jaw worked as he thought.

“Thank you,” Tom replied, aiming for the same kind of gentleness that was so natural to Will. “Promise I won’t be in the way. You can do whatever while I work.”

There was a very specific smile that Will sent Tom sometimes, one that lit up his face slowly, like the sky turning dusty lavender just as the sun was beginning to rise. It filled Tom up with the light, the colours, the quiet that drew him to Will. Those same things that made him such as perfect model for Sco, a model for the type of person he’d been dreaming up his entire life.

Wednesdays transformed from the best day of the week into something like a game. Only instead of platforming and searching for clues and salt and ammunition in garbage cans, Tom was sneaking his own clues for Will to find. A little puzzle to see what random thing he could leave at Will’s flat, what items he would or wouldn’t notice joining the ranks among his things in the kitchen or the lounge room.

Tom could only dream about the day he could maybe forget something in the bedroom. Jesus, what a dream that was.

Suddenly, Wednesdays were the only day worth paying attention to. He was worried that he was honestly going a bit boring, what with all of his talk of Will and his work and his mannerisms, all of his daydreamed sketches bleeding from his notebooks onto any slip of paper he could find, all of his recipe searching.

The cooking was sort of outside the initial plan Tom had drafted, but it was a nice surprise. It was an easy reason to convince Will to let him stay, and honestly, Will needed it. There’d barely been any food in the flat that morning after drinks, barely any staple foods hidden away in the cupboards. It almost felt like he was doing Will a service by forcing him to eat a solid meal once a week, like he was doing something altruistic despite all of his plotting and dreaming.

He’d forgotten how nice it was to cook for someone other than himself, someone who was grateful for whatever he made. Only Will was a lot more effusive than Tom’s mum or sister ever were, but maybe that was because Will never seemed to expect the food to emerge from his cooker or oven.

“Holy shit, you made Yorkshire pudding?” Will’s eyes were wide as he poked one of the cooling puds when he wandered into the kitchen. “It’s not even Sunday, what is this?”

“I was just feeling a bit fancy, you know. Besides, you’re the one who had the tin,” Tom replied. It had only taken a few practice runs at his own place to figure out how to make them puff properly, but god, it was worth it for the look on Will’s face. Like Tom had done something magical. He felt a little like a cliché housewife from an old film, doting over a man with food to win him over.

He hoped like hell it was working.

“Tom, you’re amazing,” Will murmured, voice so full of wonder and sincerity that Tom could feel his cheeks warming.

There were so many little moments like this, moments where Tom was certain for a single heartbeat that this wasn’t just his imagination. Moments where the fantasy of Tom stepping forward to press his lips to Will’s and having his kiss returned didn’t seem all that crazy. A look would slip into Will’s eyes, a look he hadn’t quite been able to capture yet, that seemed to cut through Tom. The connection that Tom couldn’t ignore pulling him closer, tearing back the grins and laughter he hid his intentions behind to just see him.

“That’s the thing: people tend to think of photography as being a reproducible medium, an art of copies, but daguerreotype is a photo positive process,” Will explained as he gently laid the silver plate into its delicate cradle on the work table between them. “It doesn’t create negatives, only this one positive. This is the only version that will ever exist of this photo.”

“That’s so cool,” Tom murmured. “It’s like those instax cameras, but like _way_ cooler.”

Will chuckled a little, placing the glass over the frame and pressing tape along the sides to seal the daguerreotype in place. “Usually the comparison people make is to polaroids.”

“Yeah, but that’s old,” Tom replied, feeling his cheeks heat as he registered the words that had slipped from his mouth. “Not that I’m, you know, accusing you of being old or anything, just that polaroids are—”

“I might as well be at this point,” Will interrupted. He shrugged easily, slipped the sealed photograph into a padded box, and smiled over it at Tom wryly. “I’ve been honing my old man tendencies for ages now. One day I’m going to wake up and compulsively shoo neighbourhood kids off the front garden.”

“You don’t even _have_ a front garden.”

“Imagine what’ll happen when I do, though,” Will sighed almost dreamily. “I’ll finally reach my old man potential.”

Tom laughed, feeling the heat of embarrassment slipping away at the soft look on Will’s face. Will was in high form today as he described how precisely he’d terrorize the neighbourhood kids if there were any around to terrorize, all the while tidying up the work room and leading Tom to the break room on their way out of the building.

This was usually what happened now, one of them carrying on with the conversation as they walked down the wide steps outside the library and towards the tube station. They’d hush as they descended belowground, cool and dark and quiet as people funnelled around in their own worlds. Tom liked sharing a corner of his with Will. He liked this part, if only because it was nice to think that other people knew that they were together, that they were a mismatched set. But still a set. Complementary, exchanging looks and words. By the time they would re-emerge into the outside world, the conversation would pick up again as they cut across the streets towards Will’s flat.

And every time, Tom would find himself marvelling at the subtle changes that fell over Will. The quiet precision that he carried around the library got tucked away with each step closer to home, the careful, contained way he moved through the world relaxing as the door to his flat closed behind them.

The Will that lived behind that door was rapidly becoming Tom’s favourite person in the world.

“Do you think I’ll need proper shrubbery in my hypothetical garden?” Will asked from the kitchen as Tom spread his school things across the couch table. They had a routine at this point, Will with his tea and his books and his puttering around the place, Tom with his schoolwork and his covert sketches and his laying across the lounge room floor while he ignored actually doing anything.

“Of course, you’ll need to be pruning _something_ while you glare judgementally at the neighbour’s hydrangeas,” Tom said.

Will’s laughter drifted around the flat, and Tom wondered how he ever lived without the sound of it in his life. Sure, he’d had Sco before, but this was so much _more._ It honestly felt unkind to compare Will to Sco these days. Sco had been Tom’s entire childhood, had been his form of mental protection against the hurt of the world, the weight of trying to be an adult for his family when he was still only a child. But maybe Tom didn’t really need Sco like that anymore.

“I knew there was a reason why I kept you around, you always think of the things I forget,” Will said as he set the green mug on the table next to Tom’s elbow. Deep forest green with the university crest in white,. He always seemed to give Tom that mug, too often to be a coincidence. It felt like his now.

Tom had no idea what he needed, but he knew what he wanted.

He wanted to watch Will take off his jackets and roll up his shirt sleeves, because he was comfortable revealing himself here. He wanted to slip into all of the nooks and crannies of this space that they shared for a few hours, bleeding out _Tom_ on everything like a cat marking its territory with its scent. He wanted to make a tiny home for himself here.

He wanted Will to love him back.

Tom’s sketchbook and school notes were absolutely filled with Will. With furtive studies of Will’s jawline as he read on the couch while Tom was supposed to be studying, with the intricate lines of Will’s hands, with the layers of Will’s hair, so much longer and softer than Sco could ever wear it. There was a strange kind of guilt that came with drawing him over and over, like he’d simply swept away Sco for Will to take his place. But it was near impossible to resist, not after those years of trying desperately to get it _right_.

He had a few favourites, though.

“God, you’re such a creep,” Alfie sighed when they wandered into Tom’s bedroom one day to catch Tom pinning up one such favourite sketch to his wall.

“You know what? Yes, I am,” Tom stated, turning to smile at the pencil sketch of Will. He’d been reading while Tom pretended to study, stretched out on the couch, relaxing into the space in a way that Tom would probably never get over seeing. But then he’d sat up suddenly, getting Tom’s attention before reading an interesting passage aloud.

Tom could not for the life of him remember what the fuck the passage had been about, but he sure as hell remembered the gleeful expression on Will’s face, the tone of his voice. It was worth being put on display in the Louvre, but Tom’s tiny bedroom would have to do.

Tom hummed along with the opening of _Fruits Basket_ on the telly as he filled in the shadows falling across the tiles in his drawing. He’d taken a photo of Will’s kitchen while he was cooking the other week and had slowly been rendering the space in his proper sketchbook. Lucy was laying across the couch, her arms reaching over the gap between her and Tom’s chair to plait little sections of his hair.

“Your hair’s getting so long, it’s so pretty,” Lucy said as she tucked the end of a plait behind Tom’s ear.

“Thanks, I grew it myself,” he replied, smiling down at his drawing.

Lucy shoved at Tom’s shoulder, careful not to jostle him too much as he sketched. “Oh my god, shut up,” she giggled.

“Why are you even bothering with this anime, the manga’s way better,” Jovin said as he flopped onto the couch beside Lucy. “They totally ruined Shigure’s characterization in this, it’s awful.”

“I don’t mind it.” Tom shrugged and stretched his arms over his head.

“Of course you don’t, you’re just projecting his characterization in the books onto this _imposter_ ,” Jovin sighed, clearly feeling put upon as he gestured to the Shigure on the screen. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re also projecting your feelings for your librarian onto Kyo or whatever.”

“Makes sense, Tom really _is_ a Tohru type,” Lucy nodded sagely.

Tom turned to look at Tohru on the screen. She was a fairly average protagonist: pure and cute, but also a bit of a clumsy idiot. Kyo, on the other hand, was the standard brooding love interest. He pushed Tohru away out of fear, hiding his secrets under anger and aggression and irritability. The only thing he had in common with Will was the sweetness that they tried extremely hard to pretend they didn’t have. Frowning, Tom muttered, “Sure.”

“No, you really are!” Lucy insisted. “You’re both kind and forgiving to a fault, you’re the first to try to befriend anyone who looks lonely, and you have a major soft spot for loners who pretend like they don’t need you when they _totally_ do. Hence, Will and Kyou.”

“Oh,” Tom murmured, glancing down at his sketch if only to give himself a minute to pull himself together.

“Hopefully your slow burn relationship will happen a little faster than Tohru’s though,” Jovin added. “If I have to watch you pine for 23 volumes, I’ll actually throw myself out a window.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Lucy laughed, rolling her eyes at Jovin. “Besides, with everything that Tom’s doing, he’ll bag his librarian in no time.”

Sitting up abruptly, Tom looked at his mates sceptically. “What do you mean, _everything?_ ” He’d been careful, extremely, super careful to keep the lengths he was going to as casual as possible, both towards Will and towards what he’d been telling his housemates. It was all just normal, easy friend stuff. Just two dudes being homies.

“Tom, mate, we all know what you’re up to on Wednesdays. Playing boyfriend and all that,” Jovin shrugged. “You know what they say about giving shit away for free.”

“I’m not giving anything away, the fuck are you on?” Tom huffed, flopping back dramatically into his chair. He glared up at the ceiling, but under his veneer of annoyance was the thread of doubt, that little tug of fear that maybe he was right. Maybe Will was happy with the amount of care and attention Tom already showered on him, didn’t need anything more from Tom. Blinking rapidly, Tom forced himself to breathe normally.

“True,” Lucy said softly, reaching out to touch Tom’s arm. “We know that you’re just trying to be a good friend. And I trust Purnima when she says that Will’s—”

“Purnima?” Tom said as he tipped his chin back down, his eyes wide and wild as he looked at Lucy and Jovin. They blinked back at him, twin looks of confusion across their faces. “Why the fuck were you talking to Purnima?”

“She’s our mother hen now,” Lucy replied like that explained everything.

“No, why were you talking to her about Will?” Tom asked, a sinking weight dropping deep within his stomach.

Jovin lifted one shoulder, unconcerned and casual. “We’ve all got to find the good gossip where we can, and the woman is _rolling_ in it,” he responded. Tom glanced between his face and Lucy’s, torn between his hurt that they’d talk about him behind his back and his desperation to know what the hell they knew about Will that he didn’t. Purnima was one of Will’s closest friends, he couldn’t even imagine the things that she knew.

“We never really meant to gossip, it’s just that the two of you sort of naturally came up in conversation after you both left the bar that night,” Lucy explained as she patted Tom’s arm sympathetically. “We would have told you, but Purnima swore us into secrecy.”

“Thanks, I feel so much better now,” Tom sighed sarcastically, drooping into his seat to glare up at the ceiling again.

His evening was pretty normal besides that bombshell, filled with dodging his housemates to use the kitchen, the various thumps and music of a house full of people, the boring, endless slog of work he still had left to do for his morning classes. But everything was coloured with his anxieties boiling to the surface.

What did his friends know that Tom didn’t? What did Will know?

Did Will know how much he had accidentally pinned his own sense of happiness to this friendship? Pinned his hopes to a beautiful, but uncertain future together?

Lying in bed, he let his eyes trace the lines of Will’s face on the portrait, pinned just so he could see it from this vantage point. After so many years carting the image and presence of Sco next to himself, he wondered if maybe he’d projected everything. Had wrapped up more than just Sco’s image into his thoughts of Will.

But did that really matter? Did it make a difference when Will was the one who was real, the one who let Tom follow him home on Wednesdays, the one who Tom could actually _see?_

Did it matter if it was kind of Sco’s fault that Tom was in love?

But that didn’t mean that Tom was just going to _forget_ that his friends were pestering actual adults all in the name of his non-existent love life.

“So,” he near shouted as he walked into one of the repair rooms the next Wednesday, spotting Will bent over his work at one of the benches. “Turns out my dumb-arse mates have been bothering Purnima about you.”

“I’m honestly a bit surprised that I knew about that before you,” Will replied easily, still curled over his work. As Tom approached, he saw Will’s hand delicately smoothing out the back cover of a book. There was no rush, no heat, and Tom felt his heart sinking. Will didn’t care, which meant there was no reason for him to care.

Pushing aside his sinking heart, Tom sighed as he sat, “Well, I’m not. Purnima actually tells you shit that matters occasionally instead of taking the piss all the time.”

Easy as he pleased, Will shrugged off Tom’s frustration. The corner of his lips quirked, as he said, “Fair, but I usually don’t bother listening to Purnima half the time, so.” Gentle sarcasm, but it hit Tom square in the chest.

“Jesus, even _you’re_ taking the piss right now,” Tom pouted. “Doesn’t it bother you, though?” His fingers itched, needing anything to hold onto.

As Tom pulled a flathead paintbrush from Will’s toolkit, Will flipped his book closed and moved back to one of the book presses along the back wall. Over his shoulder, he answered, “Not really. They’re obviously curious about why we’re friends in the first place, which is an extremely valid question that even I don’t know the answer to,”

Tom could feel the world stilling around him.

There weren’t any easy answers to this. Not when Tom had been chasing after Sco’s face when they first met with the naïve hope that he’d lucked into some cosmic fluke, only to find himself wrapped up in the movement of Will’s hands, tracing the shapes of his smiles and his words in the air. Not when he swore Will could read his mind just by looking at him. Not when his intentions had never been aimed at friendship, never been aimed at anything other than inserting himself into a stranger’s life because of the weight of his eyes.

It was all so stupid in retrospect. Doomed from the start.

“You don’t know why we’re friends?” he asked softly. Genuinely.

He could hear Will crossing back over to him, slow and measured. Something in Will’s voice rang oddly in Tom’s ears. “Of course I know why I’m friends with you. I meant that they’re just as confused as I am about why you’re friends with me.”

 _I could list a million things,_ his brain supplied, but Tom just mumbled, “That’s a bloody stupid thing to wonder about.”

“You’re probably right,” Will sighed. The silence pulled heavy between them for a moment.

From the corner of his eye, Tom could see him lean over the table, finally reaching out for him. Tom froze, uncertain if he’d conjured up this image, the one he’d been envisioning for ages—even longer if he included his weird memories of Sco that now bore this resemblance. But the feel of Will’s fingers pressed against the hinge of his jaw, his palm large over his cheek, was very much real. Too odd and awkward to be a fantasy.

His hand only lingered for a moment, a reassuring pat, but Tom felt like the heat of his hand was burned down to his core now. When he glanced up to meet Will’s eye, his face was flushed, embarrassment clear, but he was determined. Tom felt everything settle, felt everything fall into place.

Perception was a weird thing, he mused as he forced himself to wait for Will to give him a clear sign, chattering like he always did if only to see Will’s face fully relax. If only to make Will smile bright and easy. He’d been so lost in trying not to get his hopes up that he’d lost sight of what he was really seeing. Suddenly, he saw the way Will walked so close to him that their shoulders brushed as the quiet affection of a careful person, the way he curled over him on the tube, trying not to tip them over even as they pressed so close. Patterns, habits.

The wind had a bite to it, a blast of chill that should have cut him to the core, but Tom just breathed it in. Breathed in the sting and held it as they stopped outside Will’s door. It felt like a promise, in a strange way.

Fiddling with his keys, Will broke the silence. “Do you ever feel like maybe we were supposed to meet?”

Blinking, Tom thought back to coincidences, to the feeling of Will’s eyes tearing him to shreds when they first met, to the feeling of Will’s hand against his face. “Do you mean like fate or something?”

Will clicked open the lock and looked into the open door for a moment, as if he was searching for something. “Yes,” he finally replied. When he looked over to Tom, it was with a challenge, as if daring him to air the words living on his tongue. Tom’s heart beat an angry pace in his chest. _Did he know how Tom felt? Was this his sign? Could he feel the connection between them, too?_

He knew he should say something about Sco, anything about the strange way his fit into Tom’s life. But Tom had already decided that it didn’t matter. Sco was a figment of his imagination, while Will was real. Very much real and very much waiting on a reply.

He only had one answer.

Tom darted forward, pressing his lips to Will’s like he’d imagined too many times to count. For a split second, everything aligned, their lips meeting. Warmth in the cold. Then, everything slid to the side, sending them tripping into Will’s flat and severing their connection.

When his brain registered everything after a long moment of confusion, he felt Will’s eyes staring down at him, wide and stunned, as he kept Tom on his feet. Distantly, Tom registered that his fingers were buried in the fabric of Will’s coat, his arms caught awkwardly around his shoulders. This was not exactly what he’d planned. But Will’s face was so close, his lips parted as he breathed. He wasn’t moving away. Just watching, drinking in Tom’s face.

Instinct took over. Untangling his fingers, Tom reached out, finally reached out to cradle Will’s face. This time, he moved deliberately, feet planted and head clear as their lips met again. He held the kiss for a moment, waiting for the surrealness to hit them both, waiting for reality to set in.

When Will reached up to wrap his fingers around Tom’s forearms, there was a single moment of uncertainty, a moment where Tom was sure he’d pull away. But Will pressed in, heavy, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. This was…Tom tried to swallow back the sound as their lips parted, but it was all a little too much to contain. After a lifetime of imagined love, the most that Sco could ever give him, the feeling of Will pushing into him, drawing him in, was like seeing in colour for the first time. Overwhelming and beautiful. More than he imagined.

When Will broke apart their lips for a shaky breath, Tom couldn’t bring himself to move away, still chasing after the feeling of Will under his lips. “Yes,” he answered against the perfect skin of Will’s jaw.

Will tipped his head back to expose his neck, easy as anything. “What?” he breathed.

“Yes, I think we were supposed to meet.” Tom felt like everything inside him was on fire, making him too honest, punching the truth from his vulnerable chest. “I saw you and just _knew_ , like I found something I didn’t know I was looking for.”

But did it really matter? Because Will dragged him back in, their lips searing against each other like the truth was an accepted thing between them. Unspoken and strange, but understood. Who needed logic when Tom had coincidence on his side, leading him to this exact moment, to this exact feeling of Will’s lips moving against his own. As Will leaned into him, Tom felt oddly like he’d been made for this. That he’d waited an entire century to be right here.

It was worth the wait.

“I return triumphant!” Tom shouted as he strode into the lounge room of his place. Everything was dark for once, no one milling about or laying across one of the couches. Distantly, he heard a thump from across the house, but nothing else. It _was_ pretty late, to be fair. So late, that he’d had to take the bus home, the trains long since stopped running for the day by the time he left Will’s flat, the lingering feeling of him still on Tom’s lips.

But the world had been so frozen—literally under the snowfall, but in every other way, too. Like the world was holding its breath for Tom to savour this new, wonderful development in their relationship.

“Wow, you finally made a move on your librarian?” Chris emerged from the dark kitchen, a bowl of cereal in his hands. His smile was lit only by ambient light from the streetlamps outside. It had been weeks since Tom had seen him last, let alone talk to him, but it was a relief to have an audience. Even if he was _clearly_ a vampire.

Tom grinned, standing with his hands on his hips like he’d conquered something. Hell, considering how much doubt had held him back for so long, he kind of had. “I did! I kissed Will on his beautiful, perfect face, and he fucking kissed me back!”

“Congrats, dude,” Chris said through a mouthful of food before disappearing back into the kitchen.

The world was still and dark, but for the first time in ages, Tom felt like everything had fallen into place around him. Everything was right and nice and perfect. Just like Will, just like the way they fit together, just like the weird spark of understanding that underlaid everything about the two of them.

Giggling to himself, Tom let himself believe for a minute that they really _were_ fated.

Meant to be together.

Tom had spent so long thinking about making this move forward with Will, pushing beyond what they had, that he’d sort of forgotten to put much thought into what came afterwards. He knew precisely what he wanted: more of his stuff hidden in Will’s flat, more of his days spent in Will’s presence, more of his time spent memorizing the feeling of Will’s lips against his own. But that was only half of everything, he had legitimately no idea what Will wanted, really.

Well, maybe he had a few clues. Suddenly, his mobile was buzzing with random messages from Will, the tiny icon of him filling Tom’s notifications. Considering that Tom couldn’t even remember the last time Will had kept his mobile handy at home, let alone at work, it felt significant.

A little clue whispering that he was thinking of Tom just as intensely as he was thinking of Will.

The thought made Tom brave, made him giddy and stupid with happiness, practically floating through his classes. It made him scheme. Sure, his plans so far had been pretty middling as far as success rates went, but this one was fucking failproof. He needed more than just Wednesdays in Will’s life, so he was going to _get_ more than that, damn it.

That Friday, he’d simply shown up at the library, knowing when Will would be heading home. He was careful to make it all seem casual, easy, simple, but the look of panicked surprise, the carefully hid excitement behind Will’s veneer of calm was enough to send Tom’s heart into the stratosphere. That and the fact that Will spent the entire train ride to his place staring at Tom’s lips. If that didn’t feel like victory, then nothing did.

And pushing Will back against the door when they finally freaking made it to his place, finally kissing him the way Tom had been desperate to since seeing him outside the library, that felt a plan working perfectly.

Waking up still partially dressed, but sprawled underneath the navy blue sheets of Will’s bed the next morning, though. That felt like a dream Tom had slipped into, all hazy colours and soft lights. Beside him, Will was curled into himself, his face relaxed with sleep except for the little wrinkle between his eyebrows. It always seemed to be there, like he was constantly worried about something, always lost in his own concerns. Slowly, Tom slipped his hand out from under the sheets and pressed his fingertips against Will’s brows, as if he could smooth away the worries hidden away inside Will’s head.

He smiled when Will pressed back, gently leaning into Tom’s touch. This was the dream Tom hadn’t let himself have until now. All of his tangled hopes, all of the daydreams, all of the confusion between Sco and reality, all of that converged here in the space between their breaths on a Saturday morning.

He wondered when he’d started to feel like everything began and ended with Will.

He wondered if maybe everything did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I changed my mind about 17 times on what color to make Will's bed sheets be. I feel like that could be one of those personality tests that are going around.  
> Major love to Juliette for giving me tons of ideas on animes and video games that Tom would be into!  
> Finals have been a massive pain, but I'm nearly done! Thank you all for being so patient as I've been working on this :)


	4. Chapter 4

Tom would be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought about how different his life would be if he _actually_ dated Will instead of simply pining after him forever. He’d had hours of class time to think about it when he really should have been worrying about lectures, assignments, and notes, then all of the hours he should have devoted to said schoolwork. It had lived in the forefront of his mind on Wednesday afternoons, thinking about how Will might kiss him or how long his morning showers were or how he spent his weekends or how he folded his socks. Anything, everything.

It all led up to this: seeing Will in a t-shirt.

Will slept in them, spent his weekend mornings sat at the kitchen table wearing plain grey tees that made him look less like some time traveller from the Edwardian era and more like a boyfriend. A gorgeous, mussy haired boyfriend.

Tom’s boyfriend.

“What’re you staring at?” Will asked as he glanced up from his newspaper on one such weekend morning, smirking just a little. Because he _knew_ , of course he did.

“Oh, nothing much, Just thinking about how it looks like you combed your hair with a shoe,” Tom shrugged. Looking back down to his toast, he tried to contain his smile, but it was kind of a wasted effort.

“You’re such an arse,” Will groused, rolling his eyes and carefully hiding his grin behind his paper.

He liked living in this space with Will, liked seeing the softness hidden behind the masks that Will used to keep the rest of the world away. This was a privilege that Will was bestowing on him, he could feel it in how relaxed Will’s face and shoulders were, in how often Will would reach out to touch Tom in a million different casual but significant ways.

This was a dream that Tom had spent all of those months carefully rendering in graphite in the margins of his notebooks. This was a life he desperately wanted to live.

Once, Tom had assumed that he was the one whose head was full of schemes and plans, but Will seemed to be the real planner of the two of them. Tom would often wake up to a short message from Will on the days he slept in his own bed, usually wishing him a nice morning and almost always asking whether Will should be “expecting him.” He always worded it that way, like Will was sending Tom a heartfelt love letter instead of a quick message from his mobile while he waited for the tube on his morning commute.

It was endearing and kind and wonderful, and Tom felt himself falling a little more with each one.

His school bag seemed to grow heavier each day, a spare set of clothes tucked in next to his notebooks and pens and laptop most mornings. Just in case. Sure, it was a bit bulky, but that was a small price to pay when he didn’t have to wear yesterday’s clothes as he rode the tube to campus with Will the next morning, bleary-eyed and content.

He was aiming for discreet, but clearly that wasn’t his forte.

Tom had been rifling around his bag looking for a pen in the middle of a literature lecture, a course he has only signed up for so he could chat shit with his friends during the day. Just as he finally felt a pen with his fingertips, Alfie leaned over Mark to get a better look inside his bag.

“Why the hell do you have _pants_ in your bag?” they hissed.

“Tom, oh my god,” Mark gasped, a little too loud to be whispering. “Are you running away?”

“Are you mental?” Tom whispered back.

Paola chuckled on Tom’s other side. “Usually people just leave some clothes at their boyfriends’ place instead of becoming a fucking hobo.”

“Oh my god,” Tom groaned, sliding down in his chair and hiding his face behind his hands. Around them, classmates were shooting them confused looks, some even annoyed as the professor continued on at the front of the hall like nothing was amiss. “I’m just going to Will’s tonight, that’s all.”

“What a relief,” Mark sighed.

“You need to put them in some type of protected bag or something, having them floating around with all your shit can _not_ be sanitary,” Alfie sniffed.

“Hold on.” Tom leaned around Mark to look Alfie in the face. “That’s why you were asking? Because you think I’m gross? And not because I’m heading to Will’s with a change of clothes?”

Alfie frowned slightly, tilting their head in confusion as they spoke slowly, “Tom, it’s Tuesday. Your last class gets out right as Will is leaving work. You told me on three separate occasions just last week that it was a sign from the universe that you were meant to be—and I quote—‘all up in that.’”

“Seems legit,” Mark shrugged. “Wait, though, it’s Tuesday?”

“You’re all idiots,” Paola sighed.

It was hard not to talk about Will constantly, not now that he was dating him. Regularly sleeping over at his flat type dating him. What a fucking thought, what a lovely turn of events. But he had a consuming quality about him, hidden depths that Tom was still trying to find the source waters for, little markers that clearly had some type of meaning, if only Tom could make out the bigger picture. The more he discovered about the secrets Will kept buried, the more confusing everything became. The more that weird string of connection seemed to pull them together.

The more Tom felt certain that he was in extremely fucking deep with this.

But it also meant that he couldn’t shut up about him. He honestly thought he’d talked about Will a lot before, but suddenly everything reminded him of something Will had said, something Will had done, something Will might like. Even though he could actively see himself boring his friends, Tom couldn’t stop, didn’t know how to stop.

Luckily, there were still a few people willing to listen to him blather on.

“Tom, you don’t know how happy it makes me seeing you and Will together. Like, ugh, my babies,” Purnima sighed happily, pressing her hand to her heart.

Even though Tom could sort of wander into Will’s place on whichever night he felt like now, Wednesdays were still their thing. Tom would help out whoever got to him first when he arrived at the special collections, wander around until he found Will, then follow him home like the lovesick idiot that Tom was. The lovesick _boyfriend_ Tom was. Amazing.

Today was no different. Purnima had been waiting on him, clearly, pouncing out to grab him right as he walked through the double doors. She set him to work immediately on digitizing at the massive book scanner that was Purnima’s pride and joy.

“I’m glad you’re happy about it. Most of my mates are pretty over it already,” Tom shrugged as he carefully turned to the next page of the book they were scanning.

She giggled and ruffled his hair, saying, “There’s always a weird period before everything settles with a relationship. You’re still in the honeymoon phase, no shame in that. Maybe try to talk about your classes or something a bit more, if you think of it. There’s only so much of Will that the average person can take at one time.”

“That’s what I don’t get, though! He’s…” Tom held up his hands, searching for any words that could convey _Will_. “He’s a puzzle, you know? He’s always surprising me with something, and that’s way more interesting to think about than, I don’t know, the Hundred Years War or whatever the fuck happened on fucking _Coronation Street_ this week or whatever. I know I’m the problem, but I can’t help it.”

Purnima placed her hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “Sweetheart, everything’s going to be alright. Just try your best, and they’ll come around.”

That was probably the best way to look at everything, but he would be stupid not to realize why his friends were so annoyed. _There’s only so much of Will the average person can take_ , rang around Tom’s head as he watched Will pack away his photos, still hard at work planning an exhibit for the next autumn term. He could see what they did: loud, excitable Tom in his stupid anime t-shirts and trackies looking young and lovesick next to Will, all calm professionalism and neat jumpers living away from the press of people in his private little world. It shouldn’t make sense.

But Will didn’t seem to give a shit about that. It was like his laser vision cut through all of the noise that made them seem like they shouldn’t fit, cut past all of the shit that didn’t matter to see the ways that they actually did. If Will was a puzzle then Tom had the cypher, the key to the hidden code.

Not like it was all that hidden, not when Tom knew where to look.

“Did you forget your jacket somewhere again?” Will asked as they gathered their things in the break room. He was trying for a laugh, Tom could tell, but his concern was too obvious to fully hide away.

Tom shrugged, smiling up at Will’s frown. “I’m wearing a hoodie, I’m fine.”

“It’s still too cold for you to be out without a jacket,” Will grumbled in reply. Shaking his head, he pulled his scarf from his neck, draped it around Tom’s, and arranged it neatly around his face. His frown slipped from his face as he took in his handywork, clearly pleased.

Heat rose in Tom’s cheeks, but that wasn’t really the scarf’s fault. It smelled like Will, subtle and just a little sweet, and it felt oddly like the way Will liked to speak words into Tom’s skin. Liked to let his lips catch in murmured words between kisses to his wrist or his neck or his cheek. This was yet another simple act, that special kind of subtle affection that Will thrived on, just as subtle and sweet as he smelled.

Tom didn’t think he’d ever need a jacket again, he thought as they trekked across campus, not if Will kept wrapping him up in all of these emotions.

“Will,” Tom said, slipping his hand into Will’s as they meandered down the street towards his place. The warmth trapped between their palms almost burned against the cool air, the spring slowly setting in around them. “Does it bother you that people don’t understand us?”

Pulling a face, Will’s fingers instinctively tightened around Tom’s. “People have never understood me, I stopped caring about that years ago.” But his jaw tightened ever so slightly.

“I get that, but I don’t know, I meant more that they don’t understand…” Tom shrugged. “Us. This. What makes us work, what attracts us to each other,” he continued, feeling stupider by the second. But he trusted Will to hear him out, however horribly he phrased the question.

“How is that anyone’s business?”

“I mean, people are allowed to be curious,” Tom said slowly, trying not to push Will too far away from the question he actually wanted answered.

But Will’s brows were pulling heavy over his eyes. “That doesn’t mean they’re entitled to anything,” he shot back. He slowed to a stop, using their still connected hands to get Tom’s full attention. “Are your mates giving you shit again? Because I—”

“No, nothing like that,” Tom hurried to say. Crowding against Will’s chest, Tom tilted back his head and smiled up at his concerned face. “I was just thinking was all.”

“You should stop that, you could hurt yourself,” Will replied, clearly trying to shake off his agitation. Idly, he tucked Tom’s hair back behind his ear with his free hand. There was something so loving in the act that Tom felt his cheeks flush, something that made him feel pretty and cherished in a way that he didn’t even know was possible.

It really didn’t matter what people saw, he decided as they started towards Will’s flat again. Not when Tom was the person who got to put the pieces of Will Schofield’s puzzle into place.

There was so much Tom could read from the sounds of Will falling asleep. The way he’d fight it at first, his breathing going long and slow just for him to catch himself, pull himself heavy from it. How eventually everything would sink, the fight leaving him as exhaustion took over. It would be smooth, even breathing for ages before…

Will thrashed back the covers, legs breaking free and pulling the quilt from Tom in the process.

The first time this had happened, Tom had been in a panic, assuming that something horrible was happening. Not that nightmares _weren’t_ terrible, but there wasn’t much Tom could do to help that. But he was getting better about it, his brain catching up with the world quicker each time. Some nights, he couldn’t even remember sleepily waking Will, still so buried in his own sleep. It was normal, this was just what Will was like.

But there were some nights that sat against his chest. He gently ran his hand along Will’s spine, hoping that it would be enough to soothe him without pulling him awake. Will needed all the sleep he could get, really.

His breathing levelled as Tom pulled the sheets back over him, curling into himself enough that his forehead rested against Tom’s shoulder.

This was also normal now, but it probably would never lose the pretty shine of specialness. Tom was a comfort, Will would all but say so in the morning, and that alone told him what he needed to know. About Will, who pressed his thanks into Tom’s lips each morning. About Tom, who wanted to be here more than anywhere else in the world.

As Will’s breathing filled Tom’s senses, he whispered out a tiny experiment.

“I love you, Will Schofield.”

Will didn’t react, his breath warm across Tom’s collarbone, but that was fine. The fact that it felt right, felt like all of the various threads and parallel lines meeting in one perfect sentence was more than enough for now.

April never started well for Tom. The first week was always a slow build of anxiety, a roiling pit that filled his lungs more and more each day. Then, by the end of the week, he’d feel like he’d been dropped off a cliff somewhere. Empty. Quiet. He’d learned how to live through the week, distracting himself as best as he could, waiting for the feeling to pass. It always did, but the promise of that only slightly negated the pain of the week itself.

The worst part of it now, though, was knowing that his anxiety was bleeding from him into Will. He could see how much more skittish Will was getting as the week progressed, the way Tom’s mood hung so heavily over them both now. It sucked, it really sucked.

He did what he could, throwing himself into a group project, hiding everything as deeply as he could, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Tom woke well before dawn, angry dreams pulling at him until he didn’t even want to sleep anymore. He wondered if that was what Will always felt like when he closed his eyes, his nightmares—or “dreams,” as Will insisted they be called—always sitting just on the edge of his mind, waiting. There was no way to know, really, not while Will was still so resistant to acknowledging that he even had dreams, let alone talk about what they were like.

It was frustrating as fuck, but Will was like that sometimes. He liked keeping his secrets.

The world was a bit of a haze in Tom’s sleep deprived state, everything existing a step back from where it usually did. Just out of reach. He sincerely hoped that this was the worst of it, the anxiety building as he waited for…something. Maybe he’d stolen Sco’s role, the endless waiting for who knows what.

He’d nearly crawled home from class today, spreading out his work in the hopes that he could make any type of progress. Within minutes, he’d pulled up _Spirited Away_ on his laptop, desperate for noise, for comfort, for a distraction.

Not for the first time, he wondered what would happen if he just showed up at Will’s flat late, desperate and begging to be loved.

The little train in the movie was trundling down the track, past the shining water, Chihiro heading out to try to save Haku, when Paola pushed open Tom’s door. “Oi, Blake, your boyfriend’s here,” she announced.

Behind her, Will peeked through the doorway, looking a little sheepish as he gazed around at Tom’s mess of a room.

Stabbing at the space bar, pausing his movie, Tom fumbled to his feet. He’d long since given up on making plans when it came to Will, but this was _not it_. “Will? Hey, hi, uh, did I miss a message or something—?” he said haltingly.

Laughing, Paola wiggled her fingers as she wandered away, calling, “Have fun,” over her shoulder. Tom ducked around Will to lean out his doorway, subtly flipping her off before closing the door behind him. When he turned, it felt like he was seeing a ghost or something, the incongruous image of Will dressed for work standing in the middle of Tom’s half-filled bedroom. A vision of Sco surrounded by Tom’s childhood toys flashed behind his eyes, but he shook the image away.

He’d been given no warning, no time to remove the traces of idiotic pining, the portrait of Will hanging like it always did over his bed. As if he knew exactly where to look, Will stepped over to Tom’s bed, eyes trained on the portrait. Oh God, oh Jesus.

“I didn’t think I was a particularly easy person to draw, but I guess you’ve proven me wrong,” he said softly, a smile evident in his voice as he turned. Will held out one of Tom’s notebooks, one that he hadn’t even realized was missing until now, and Tom knew exactly what was tucked into its back cover.

Tom really needed to find some other shit to draw, this was awful.

Taking the notebook, he mumbled, “Oh. Um. Yes.” He flipped to the back, another portrait of Will still hidden away there. Only clearly not hidden enough. “You, uh, actually are kind of hard to get right.” In a perfect world, he would have been able to shove his entire fist in his mouth at this moment, if only to keep himself from saying another fucking stupid and revealing thing.

Will perched himself against the edge of Tom’s bed. “You’ve practised?” he asked, his grin stretching across his face mischievously.

This was _not_ the plan, so decidedly not the plan. Tom ran his hand over his forehead, all of the images of him presenting some perfectly innocuous and well-timed portrait to Will over a romantic supper—candles, multiple courses, the whole shebang. It had all been leading up to Will asking him to move in or marry him or some shit. The dream. Not this freaking cringe nightmare.

“A few times,” he admitted, belatedly realizing that Will was still waiting on an answer. “I know it’s a bit weird, but I don’t know, I just like…” _staring at you constantly, thinking about you literally all the time, obsessing over you._ Instead, he offered, “your face.”

But, instead of concern or worry storming across Will’s face, both valid and normal and frankly justified responses to Tom being a fucking creep, his grin only grew. Will held out his hands to Tom as he laughed, “Last I checked, it’s probably a good thing to like your boyfriend’s face.”

Tom let himself fall into Will’s orbit, slipping between his hands and knees to look down at Will’s perfect, smiling face. “I guess so. It just still feels a little mental that you are, you know? My boyfriend,” he mumbled, marvelling at the fact Will wasn’t panicking. He must have seen this already, had already torn back Tom’s defences to see how stupidly deep he’d fallen, how desperately he still pined after Will even now.

Will relaxed into his hands, Tom’s fingers buried in his hair. His hand was so warm as he pressed it against his stomach, reassuring him as if he knew how horrible April always was. He’d always been amazing at knowing what Tom was trying to hide away, so why would this be any different?

“Tom?” Everything seemed to still for a moment as Will said, “I love you.”

This was the Will that Tom had been trying so hard to capture on paper all this time. The Will who smiled up at him like he was worth being in love with, the Will who showed up out of the blue with his own plans and designs for Tom’s heart, the Will who existed far beyond Sco ever could.

Easy as breathing, Tom replied, “I love you, too.”

There had been so many times that Tom felt like Will could read the words written on the inside of his chest, but he hadn’t anticipated the feeling of forming those words in the air for Will. The feeling radiated from their lips as they met, rippling out from their fingertips like waves against the shore. And Tom let himself follow those waves to tip them back into his bed and press all of his aching, all of his yearning against the heat of Will’s skin.

Some distant part of him marvelled that _this_ was where things had led—Will sliding Tom’s shirt over his head all smooth and slow while Tom tugged haphazardly at Will’s shirt collar. Maybe he truly had buried so much love into those years of drawing Sco that the universe had moved for him.

After so long living under the greyness of winter, the soft damp of spring was a relief. Tom stretched his arms over his head as he walked down the now familiar neighbourhood around Will’s flat, breathing in the smell of life struggling to take hold between the lines in the pavement. It had been a long afternoon spent digging through articles and journals online, and Tom felt a little like his brain had turned to mushy peas inside his head. He was tired and ready for mindless whatever for the rest of the day.

And nowhere was more relaxing than wherever Will happened to be at that exact second.

Tom hoped he’d be a pleasant surprise, showing up out of the blue, hoped that Will was secretly waiting for Tom to show up. He might be projecting a little with all of that, but there was no better way to find out.

Shaking out his shoulders, Tom took a moment outside of Will’s door to find a comfortable stance. Nonchalant, easy, no pressure. If Will knew Tom was coming, he’d leave the door unlocked, but Tom knew that Will was far too cautious to leave it open without advance warning. He knocked twice. Inside the flat, Tom could hear movement followed by quiet swearing, and Tom bit his lip. Will was probably busy, probably had shit to do, and Tom hadn’t even bothered to ring him to check. Forcing his face to remain neutral, he listening to the sounds of Will approaching on the other side of the door, tracing him moving through the space in his mind.

“Hi,” Will said as he pulled open the door, smiling the secret smile that felt like maybe it belonged to Tom now. A wave of warm air laced with cinnamon and flour rolled over Tom, sweet with a tang of bitter.

Any of his lingering anxiety slipped away as he stepped inside and into Will’s arms. “Hi, yourself,” Tom replied against Will’s lips. He had a way of sort of holding Tom against his chest, curling over him almost like he was forming a physical wall between Tom and the rest of the world. If Tom could live in that safe, protected space, he would have moved in yesterday.

“Sorry I lost track of time, I would have left the door open for you,” Will murmured as he pulled Tom through the flat by his fingers.

“I didn’t even tell you I was planning to drop by,” he wondered aloud.

Will shrugged, shooting a smirk over his shoulder as he led Tom into the kitchen. The aroma of cinnamon was thick in the air here. “I just had a feeling. Besides,” he said, tipping open the oven door to pull out a loaf tin. “You could probably sense me attempting to bake. No way in hell you’d want to miss that.”

“Jesus, my timing is perfect,” Tom laughed. There was a strange swell of pride, a sense that this was his doing. When he met Will, he seemed to barely register that he was allowed to enjoy things, to take a moment to care for himself, but now? Now Will was smiling down at this clearly over-spiced banana bread like it was his crowning triumph. “Glad I didn’t miss out.”

“I would have saved you a piece,” Will replied.

Tom pouted, pulling at Will’s arm playfully. “Oh, come on, just one?”

“It all depends on how well it turned out. The shittier it is, the more pieces you’ll have to enjoy,” Will said as he leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Tom’s head.

“Thanks so much,” Tom grumbled.

Will chuckled, stepping back to look at Tom’s face properly. “I meant to talk to you about the door.” Glancing over at the banana bread still steaming on the cooker, Will pressed his lips together as he paused, colour rising high on his cheeks. “I want you to feel welcome here, no matter what,” he said softly.

Tom heart pounded in his ears. _A key,_ it shouted over and over, _the key to his door, to his flat, to_ him. “Oh?” Tom managed to say, but all he could see were visions of him showing up whenever, all because Will wanted him to feel _welcome_. He’d begun as a stray cat creeping in through the back window, but now he was wanted and invited. There would be a tiny piece of this space that he could take with him.

“I keep a spare key inside the letterbox,” Will continued, pressing another kiss to Tom’s hair. “You can use it whenever you’d like.”

All of the heat in Tom chest seeped out, leaving behind a cavern.

This wasn’t him giving away a piece of himself for Tom to carry, wasn’t the gesture of trust and affection that Tom felt himself aching for still. Despite everything, Will wasn’t ready to leave something that precious to Tom’s care.

But he would be. One day.

Tom leaned into Will’s shoulder, tucking his forehead against Will’s neck, and let his hurt dissolve like sugar in water. He trusted Will, wanted to scoop out his heart and place it lovingly in his hands, and one day, he would prove to Will that he could do the same. That Tom was worthy of cradling Will’s precious burdens.

The sun overhead was weak in that particular way that spring days seemed to have, all rosy and yellow just as the world was sprouting back to life. Tom was humming under his breath as he hung his laundry to dry in the tiny back garden behind the house. Inside, he could hear Jovin and Paola laughing as they insulted people on Call of Duty. He’d finished an essay that Will had promised to proofread for him by tomorrow morning, so his Sunday afternoon was as free and airy as his shirts hanging on the line.

Halfway through his task, his mobile buzzed in his pocket, a chirping ringtone that only meant one thing. “Hey, mum!” he said, tucking the mobile between his cheek and his shoulder as he continued his task.

“Hello, my love,” his mum replied. He’d had mates who made fun of how much he talked like his mum, all longwinded stories and facial expressions, but it was just home to him. “How’s things?” she asked, cheerful and bright tone overlaying her curiosity. He could almost feel how she held herself back, trying to be polite. What she was curious about, though, Tom wasn’t entirely sure.

“Not bad,” Tom replied. Shaking out his jeans, he paused as he pinned them up, hoping that she’d take the bait. “School’s a pain, but what else is new.”

“Good! Good.” Another pause, the sounds of the telly in the background on her end playing distantly in Tom’s ear. “Alright, I have to admit something. Sarah and I have been chatting a bit—nothing serious! Just chatting.” Tom braced himself for whatever came next. “But I was wondering how everything was with your Will.”

Tom lowered the shirt in hand hands slowly, even more confused as to what she was after. “It’s good. Really good, actually. Why do you ask?”

“Well, Sarah and I were comparing notes was all. I knew that you were fairly serious about this man of yours, but it seems like maybe you’re a bit more serious than I thought?” she said, voice tilting up just a little. Just enough room for Tom to laugh this off if he wanted to.

But Will was the last thing Tom wanted to laugh off.

“Yeah, um. Yeah, I’m pretty serious about him.” Tom took a deep breath, reaching up to adjust his mobile carefully. “I keep joking that I’m going to marry him, but I haven’t really been joking for…a while. I never figured I’d ever even want to get married, what with dad skipping out on us, but it feels so…”

On the other end, his mum waited silently. They usually were both such chatterboxes, but there was a weight to this. They didn’t usually air their actual feelings so plainly, not this clearly. No, they were the type to put on a brave face, to smile through the struggle, laugh through their tears. But this deserved Tom’s honesty, this was the shit that Tom was willing to confront to try to make sense of him and Will together. Make sense of the completeness that filled in the gaps between Will and Tom, Schofield and Blake.

Letting out a sigh, Tom continued, “I know it sounds mental, I mean, we haven’t even been dating for that long, but I just _feel_ it, you know?”

“Oh, Tom, my love, I’m so happy for you,” she said, voice small but sincere.

Tom gave himself a moment, pinning up the shirt in his hands as he sorted through everything. Everything she wasn’t saying. “Do you think it’s too soon?”

“That’s not really for me to say,” she responded. “Feelings sort of happen on their own, there’s not much you can do about that. And I don’t want you to think that just because your father and I fell apart means that you’re doomed to repeat my mistakes. I may have rushed into a relationship with someone who wasn’t willing to sacrifice for other’s people needs, but that doesn’t mean anything for how fast you’re moving now. You’ve always been smarter at people than me, besides. Just don’t lose sight of what you need from him, and you should be more than fine.”

Tom nodded slowly as he ran his fingers along the damp collar of the jumper he’d worn home from Will’s last week, a worn out one that Will usually only wore around his flat. Even after washing, it still smelled faintly of him, and Tom was very much resisting the urge to bury his nose in the thing. “The problem is that, most days, I feel like all I need from him is _him_ , you know?”

She hummed gently. “Building up your own happiness on other people isn’t the best idea. People make mistakes, they hurt each other, that’s just how life goes. Loving someone means opening yourself up to be hurt in a thousand ways that you never even considered before.”

“Not Will, he’s not like that,” Tom shot back, trying to keep the hurt from his voice.

“I trust you,” she said, and he could hear that she believed that. He could feel his shoulders relaxing as she continued, neatly sweeping aside their conversation. “Now, the _real_ reason why I ringed was to ask about your summer holiday, because I think it’s high time that your sister and I met a certain man in your life.”

Tom laughed, trying to emulate her casual way of sidestepping the weight of Tom’s relationship. But he wasn’t built for that.

The problem was that he knew he was being an idiot. He knew that it wasn’t a great idea to chase so desperately after a private, careful, frankly secretive person, affixing so much to the puzzle of Will’s heart. There were so many little things still left unsaid, the truth untold between them. How much was Tom hurting Will simply by keeping Sco a secret?

But it might be a little late to take that back now.

The thought of what Tom really needed sat oddly in his chest. He very nearly asked Will, knowing how accurate he was at sorting out Tom’s mind, laying out the various threads and lines and sentence fragments into coherency. But something about that felt wrong, like he was turning too fully into Will for help. The problem that he kept coming back to was that Will already gave him so much that it was hard to know what was already there and what Tom truly needed from him. From their relationship.

He had support in the curious and kind comments that Will lavished upon the drawings Tom was confident enough to show Will, in the constructive criticism that Will jotted in the margins of Tom’s essays that he willingly proofread, in the pleased expression that lit up Will’s eyes whenever Tom would ramble about his courses.

He had romance in the nights where Will would take him out to his favourite restaurants then stand just a little too close on the train ride home. Or the way Will would smooth back his hair, letting his fingers linger over the curls that were beginning to form as Tom let his hair grow longer. Or the evenings eating take-away at Will’s little kitchen table, giggling over stupid shit together. Or that extremely specific look Will would try to hide whenever Tom laced their hands together as they walked, the one that looked just a little like he couldn’t believe that this was real.

Tom couldn’t really believe it, either.

Yet, he couldn’t deny that he was just a little _curious_. There was something buried in the dreams that so often pulled from his sleep, something distinctively painful about the way he’d murmur, _the flares, the water, the dust_ , whenever Tom would ask. And god, Tom would give about anything to understand half of what made Will’s voice go so stilted and strange whenever his mother would ring him. Understand the hard line of his shoulders when he’d turn to Tom for comfort afterwards. All of that burned across Tom’s brain some days, but nothing more than the fleeting look that Tom only caught glimpses of from the corner of his eyes.

It was a harsh look, calculating. Like he was trying to implant some thought inside Tom’s brain or maybe try to read something that Tom had buried away. What the hell was he even looking for?

He knew that he had no right to ask for answers, no right to pry when Sco was still a secret tucked into his sketchbook. But how could he ever broach the subject without making himself seem like a loon? As much as he wanted to open up every corner of himself in the hopes that Will would finally trust him enough to do the same, Tom couldn’t risk losing Will. Maybe one day he’d figure out what the hell he was doing. Hopefully.

But none of those thoughts were in Tom’s mind at all when he found it. He’d been having an annoying day, his brain feeling sluggish and overused, but Will was home now. Will made the flat feel cosy and lived in, bleeding out warmth when he walked in the door. Will made this tiny flat feel like _home_.

Still, the feeling of frustration clung to Tom as he dug through the wardrobe for a clean shirt, having spilled tea down the front of the one he was wearing. Enough so that he sighed gustily when he knocked the hanger off onto the floor when he yanked out the first shirt he saw. It bounced and landed against a cardboard box, tucked back out of sight. Tom hadn’t even realized it was there.

Leaning down, Tom reached out for the hanger, his hand stilling when he realized what was laying across the top of the box. A single folder. A single folder labelled in Will’s neat handwriting.

A single folder labelled _Thomas Blake._

Sitting back on his heels, Tom slipped out the folder, holding it delicately like it would explode if he wasn’t careful. Hell, he couldn’t be sure, it might. It wasn’t heavy, there clearly wasn’t much inside, but the weight was odd, something weighing down one side. But it didn’t matter what was inside, not really.

This was a secret. This was something that Will had done deliberately, something he had purposely kept hidden. Had he researched Tom’s life?

Maybe it was something innocuous, though. Lists of things he liked about Tom, maybe scraps of writing waxing poetic on Tom’s hair or some shit. Something lovely and good and not at all terrifying. But there was a silence in Tom’s heart, whispering that maybe he’d known what was in this all along.

For the first time in weeks, Tom could swear he saw Sco from the corner of his eye. Waiting for just this moment.

Tom opened the folder.

His own face stared back at him. Monochrome, the depth of field all strange in the way that old photos always seemed to have.

As if he was sleepwalking, he stood, shuffling over to the doorway. Will was sitting on the couch, eyes closed and smiling as he leaned his head back against the cushions. He looked soft and sweet, and all Tom wanted was to forget that this ever happened.

But he couldn’t. “Will,” he managed to say, holding out the folder. “What is this?”

Will tipped his head to the side, emotions trailing across his face like lights in the sky. Stark and painful to watch too closely, but Tom couldn’t tear his eyes away. Confusion was chased away by shock, all of it shoved aside by dread.

Fear.

He stood, saying, “Tom.” Nothing felt real in that moment, not the tremor in his voice, not the folder in Tom’s hand, everything was as ephemeral as Sco’s shape hovering beside him. “Tom, please—"

“What the hell is this? What the fuck are these things?” Tom asked, begged. _Make this better, make this go away,_ he pleaded silently, but Will just looked terrified. Frozen in place.

“I can—I can explain—” Will held out his hands as he moved around the couch, reaching out for Tom.

But for the first time, Tom couldn’t reach back. One secret too many. “Please!” he cried, the panic building in his chest bursting through him the longer he watched the hesitant fear sitting like a mask on Will’s face. The longer the image of himself stared up at him from the folder, only black and white, dressed in the uniform that he’d spent his life memorizing on Sco. “Seriously, I’d _love_ to hear what you think can explain _this.”_

Will stared at the photo that Tom brandished at him. There was a longing there, hidden deep behind his eyes as he looked at this _other_ Thomas Blake that tore through Tom. Tore him up and tossed him aside.

“My great-grandfather served with a Thomas Blake. That’s him,” Will explained slowly, haltingly. Like it hurt. But Tom could barely hear a thing.

“This is real? This is a real photo?” he heard himself ask.

“Yes, it’s real,” Will replied with a careful step forward. He watched Tom like he was a skittish cat, like he would lash out if he moved too quickly. Like he didn’t trust Tom.

“A real man with _my_ name and _my_ face?”

Another step forward, then Will said, “This was research for my thesis, I promise it’s all authentic.”

It felt like Tom was underwater, the sounds of Will’s voice, of his own so distant that he could barely make out the sounds. He could feel himself forming the words, “You knew. You knew this _entire time_ , and you never said anything? I knew that there were things you were keeping from me, but _this?_ ” When he looked down at the other Thomas Blake, he felt like the water was crushing his lungs. “This is mental. This is _mental_ , you have to realize that. This can’t be real.”

Suddenly, all of his past talk of _connections_ and _coincidences_ felt like the hollow promises they were. Painful reminders of his childhood delusions. Oh, god. “Jesus, that’s what you meant, wasn’t it? When you asked me if we were supposed to meet,” Tom asked, feeling the water rising higher within him.

When he finally glanced back up at Will, he seemed to be just as lost as Tom felt. “I thought that, I don’t know, maybe you knew. I wanted to tell you—”

Tom could practically see the dots connecting in his own head. The looks. The secrets. “No, you didn’t,” Tom shot back, anger building at himself for ignoring it all. Had he simply been feeding into this? Was that the connection he felt? “You hid this away, hid it somewhere where you could pretend like it didn’t affect this. You could have told me a million different times, and _you didn’t_.”

 _But what about Sco?_ his brain supplied. Clearly, Will could read his mind again. “I know this is mental, I know. But I’m not the only one who was keeping things close to my chest. Your drawings—”

“My drawings? You _looked_ , you looked through—” Tom could feel the pressure building, the water crashing against his head, knocking out all of his sense. “That’s different! That was just…thinking. Stories.” _Excuses._ “This is…This why you wanted to be with me, wasn’t it?”

“No, Tom, please, it’s not like that,” Will whispered.

Underneath his hand, Tom could see his face again in another photo. Only there was another familiar face. Sco. Looking down at his face was like being stabbed in the gut, the lines and shapes of him so familiar yet foreign. Will was only supposed to be the model of what he wanted, not the ghost of it. This wasn’t _fair_.

Tom could feel himself drowning.

“It kind of looks that way,” he felt himself say, turning the photo towards Will, if only to hide from the spectres of the past.

He could feel Will’s hand wrapping around his arm, the warmth of it the only thing keeping him from drifting away on the tides. “My dreams,” Will said softly. “I’ve been dreaming of the war my entire life. The war my great-grandfather lived through, as if I _was_ my great-grandfather. Everything. It’s been this ghost hanging around my shoulders, but Blake was one of the only bright spots he had, that _I_ had. And, when I met you, I needed—I was terrified, but I needed to know. That I wasn’t alone. Everything after that was just…I didn't want to scare you off, but then I thought—or maybe convinced myself that you knew. Do you truly not remember anything?” As Will looked at him searchingly, Tom realized he was crying.

Tom was drowning.

“I never expected any of this. Tom, I promise I love you. I promise it’s _you_ I love,” Will stated, pleaded, and Tom wanted to believe him. Like a fucking idiot, he wanted to believe.

But Tom was still drowning.

“I have to think,” he mumbled, finally feeling himself get lost in the tide. Feeling himself be swept out to sea, far, far from where Will could reach him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, angst.  
> Thank you all for waiting so patiently as I finished up my finals and found time to edit this beast of a chapter. I'm hoping to be caught up on comments really soon!


	5. Chapter 5

By the time he realized he’d left, he was already on the train home, so used to the commute that it hadn’t even occurred to him. His bag was strewn across his lap, and the folder, the fucking folder, pressed to his chest like it could cover up the pain of everything. Like he could hide his heart away.

He was crying.

It didn’t make _sense_ , it couldn’t be real. This was impossible and horrible, and Tom wished that Will could have just hidden this away far better. He didn’t want this.

For all of his childhood dreaming, all of his endless pining, he didn’t want Sco to be real.

Him being real meant that the pain that poured from him was real. Him being real meant that his protective streak, his worries had been there for a real reason. Him being real meant that there was some other Blake that was real, too.

Guilt clawed at Tom’s throat, knowing just how deeply he’d buried his own secrets. So much of the hurt bleeding through his chest was his own fault. Was Sco’s fault.

 _My dreams,_ Will had said. Coloured spots formed behind Tom’s eyes when he pressed them closed, turning away from the curious and concerned stares of the woman seated opposite him on the train. The flares, his looks, everything, everything, everything, formed into a massive picture of the past, lit in the soft colours of the photos pressed to Tom’s chest. The maze of trenches hidden away under the dirt of France tangled against the face that he knew belonged to Sco. The face that now belonged to Will.

Who had he been chasing all this time?

His housemates were dancing in the lounge room when he made it home. They were moving in sync, following the choreography of a song, laughing as they tripped and stumbled through the motions. The music pulsed out, electronic and up-tempo, but the few English lyrics interspersed between Korean rattled around Tom’s head as he walked in the door. _Save me, save me_ , the song pleaded.

Jovin glanced up, the only one not dancing, to meet Tom’s eyes. His grin immediately melted in a deep frown, his concern close to the surface in a way that he rarely showed. The sight alone brought more tears to Tom’s eyes. “Tom, dude, what happened to you?” he asked over the song.

Slowly, the eyes of his friends turned to him. The folder in his arms felt like a weight, like a wall between them and him. The moment his eyes had connected with his own—his own but _different_ —he’d lost something. Or gained something, it was hard to tell.

“I don’t feel well,” Tom mumbled before practically running to the safety of his own room.

He’d let himself sleep, drifting in and out trying to forget everything. Forget school and exams and time, forget all of the ways Will looked at him, forget Sco, forget everything.

Tom’s room was so empty now. Almost everything that mattered had been carefully arranged among Will’s things by now, leaving only his anime figurines and posters that Will would have noticed buried beside his old books. But it was more than that. This was a place that he’d once considered to be mostly home, a place where he fit into easily, thoughtlessly, but now?

He might have packed up his school things, might have carried the folder out with him, but he’d left his heart wedged between the wall and Will’s headboard.

Curled up in bed, Tom tried to let the day waste away, his computer running through an entire season of _Haikyuu_ just to have something in the background. Usually the sounds of Japanese would lull his brain, easing away anything else, but the feeling of his own eyes staring out at him from the past crept up his spine. What had that other Blake seen? What secrets had that other Blake buried behind a smile?

There was a strange kind of assurance within himself about this other Blake. He knew nothing of the man, really, but he’d ended up with a piece of him lodged under his skin.

The sky outside had gone dark again by the time Tom’s phone let out a little quack. Mark had changed it as a joke, setting Will’s contact to quack on arrival. But Tom had left it, kind of liked the way it made him smile as he rushed to answer Will. Even tonight, even with the strange kind of dread of Will reaching out to him, it made Tom’s heart leap just a little.

On the screen, displayed next to Will’s name was a single line: _If you ever want to talk, I’ll still be here._

Rolling over just enough to see the sketch of Will that still hung over his bed, Tom could almost hear him whispering those words. The image of Will was so warm and perfect, everything he’d wanted him to be. But Will was more human than that.

Tom wasn’t sure when he’d run out of tears, but clearly it wasn’t today.

It didn’t take long for his housemates to connect the dots, Tom lifelessly wandering to class, tiredly returning home, Will nowhere in sight. His friends were clearly worried, but he couldn’t answer their questions, save for saying that he just needed time. He just needed to think, just needed time to figure out…everything.

But he knew that he’d be forced to speak eventually.

It only took a week for Alfie to very carefully wander into Tom’s room, really trying for nonchalance as they crawled into Tom’s bed to sit next to him. They hummed as they carefully leaned over to see Tom’s half-finished sketch of Will. It was always Will.

“So, you’ve been voted as the house representative?” Tom mumbled, setting down his pencil. He winced at the creaking, unpleasant gravel to his voice.

“I was, but I also volunteered,” Alfie said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to talk to any of us about what’s going on, but we’re all…” Lifting a shoulder, they smiled at Tom a little sadly and finished, “concerned. This is like Chris turning full vampire on us all over again.”

Tom smoothed the paper and said, “The second coming of Chris.”

Alfie’s startled laughter filled the room as they leaned gently against him. “Oh, Tom, sweetheart, we miss you.” Sighing softly, Alfie pushed back Tom’s hair to look into his eyes. “We all miss you so much. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it right now, but we’re all here if you need us.”

“I know,” Tom mumbled, glancing down to his lap. “It’s just…It’s hard to explain.”

“Take your time.”

Instead of answering, Tom let his head fall to Alfie’s shoulder.

“If it helps, both Jovin and Paola have been coming up with more and more elaborate ways to terrorize W—” Alfie cut themselves off abruptly. “Him.”

“No, please no,” Tom replied, shaking his head as he sat up again. “We both fucked up. I’m still trying to figure shit out, but he’s—I’m—” Tom pressed his hand over his eyes, trying to keep himself composed. “I can’t—”

“It’s okay if you still have feelings for him,” Alfie interrupted gently.

As Tom tucked his head back against Alfie’s shoulder, he couldn’t help but think of Sco, of the way he’d pressed so closely to Tom for so long. How was Tom supposed to figure anything out when he’d always been carrying these feelings around? How was he supposed to know what to do next when he’d let his love for Sco weep into his love for Will?

Time kept pushing on, regardless of what Tom wanted, how desperately he wished he could just shut everything off for a minute so he could just fucking _think_. Classes continued, homework continued, laundry and cooking and cleaning continued. Nothing had stopped except Tom’s heart. He felt cold, cut off from everything as he tried to appear as normal as possible.

He was in a strange kind of stasis, vacillating wildly between the sinking feeling that he was forgetting something horribly important and vehement denial that everything Will had claimed to be true was just a fantasy, a daydream to tie together the little coincidences of the world. While he was near panic he knew he was overreacting, but his calmer moments were plagued with the feeling that he wasn’t reacting enough. Nothing felt right, everything was a mess, and he just wanted to wander into Will’s flat and curl up on the lounge room floor. Waiting for Will to return, for Will to run his hands through Tom’s hair and tell him that everything would be fine, for Will to tell him he loved Tom again.

That was likely the problem here. Tom knew he should be questioning their relationship, the foundation of it, his trust in it, but he couldn’t. He could read the sincerity on Will’s face like he’d been born to see it there.

Every time Will had said that he loved Tom, he meant that.

It was everything else that was a mess. The parts of his life that he thought were so set in stone had been tossed to the wind, leaving him scrambling for anything to hold to. He’d tried to ignore it, but his fingers kept reaching out. Not just for Sco, but for the other Blake, as well. For the boy who he could feel on the edge of his memories in the strangest of ways. As if he was a character that Tom had invented and stolen the identity of.

Just like that strange, electric feeling of seeing Will for the first time, it didn’t make sense, but Tom could feel things shifting together. A kaleidoscope turning and distorting the shapes he used to know, but drawing out the colours he hadn’t realized were there.

He sleepwalked through his classes, his homework torn angry from his mind, the littlest effort possible, his focus waning. On a rainy Wednesday, the day that used to mean everything to him, he pulled the folder from its hiding place on his desk. With careful hands, he laid each photograph across his bed, the only proof that Will had gathered that the other Blake had been real.

They were all from the war, the other Blake in his uniform in various states, rings on his fingers, a smile on his face. He felt oddly close in these few photos, like he would simply turn to him and wink. An inside joke, a shared smile.

He seemed like Tom in those photos. A picture of a past that Tom had simply forgotten. Maybe.

The ring, though, that felt strange in his hand. The weight was familiar in a way, even though Tom never wore rings, never bothered with jewellery, really. Carefully, haltingly, Tom held the ring up to catch the light, the gold still shining after a century hidden away. He wondered if Will ever slipped this onto his fingers, trying to find the right fit. Without even thinking, Tom slipped the ring onto his pinkie finger.

A perfect fit.

Tom felt a stilted kind of laughter in his chest. Painful and surreal, because he had already known. He knew.

Packing up the items carefully, replacing them just as Will had, Tom let his mind run back as far as it would go. Far back to his memories of Sco on his bedroom floor, back to Sco protecting him from the dark, and further back to the murky fringes.

Pulling out his mobile, Tom searched through the bus and train routes out of the city.

He needed to go to Essex.

The Historical Society that Tom had emailed before leaving for the countryside turned out to be nothing more than the lounge room of the man who maintained everything, a cramped space filled to the brim with folders and boxes and dusty photographs. At the centre of the room was a spindly table, set up for tea by the time Tom had arrived.

“I pulled everything I could find on the Blake family,” the man said as Tom sipped at his tea. “There’s not much, but I have some wonderful additions found in an old attic somewhere. Lovely new things, we’re always so enthused for these kinds of treasures.”

He patted the box at his feet as he spoke. “It’s a funny thing. A few years back, another young man was researching this same family. I wonder if he was a relative like you, perhaps a distant cousin of yours. He didn’t much look like you that I can recall. A lovely young man all the same,” the man mused. Tom froze, his tea cup hovering in front of his face as he tried desperately to school his expression into something calm and composed.

Will had been here.

“Sure, yeah, maybe,” Tom managed to laugh. He set down his tea and gently pushed it away. “I’m really curious about what you’ve found.”

The man grinned, opening the box gently and pulling out a slim file folder and a thick book. “We’ve found one of the most wonderful and important items for a family: their bible.” He tapped the worn leather cover of the book, plain and unlabelled, nothing like the manuscripts that sometimes occupied Will’s time at the library. “There’s an entire family tree written into the flyleaves here at the beginning, as was the practice in those days.” Flipping open the book, the man turned the book to face Tom, the blank pages before the title page exposed.

In neat yet faded writing was a list of names and dates. A few of the dates had little labels— _marriage, death_ , written in that weird old English that Tom recognized from transcription work.

The list ended abruptly on the page, one final name and date of birth.

_Thomas, 7 September 1897_

Tom swallowed hard, feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut. Something buried in his chest knew he’d found the right place, knew that this was definitive proof of the Other Blake’s life. His hands shook just a little as he slid the bible just a little closer to himself on the table.

“Why is there no death date for Thomas?” he asked quietly, pointing to the name on the page.

“I’m not entirely sure, but we do know the exact date of his death given the military records we have collected for this family,” the man said. After rifling through the file folder, he pulled out a letter emblazoned with the royal seal. A military address. “He died in service on April 6th of 1917 and was posthumously awarded honours upon his death.”

April. The worst month of the year. Lines were crossing in Tom’s head, bleeding through the course of his life, like Tom had never had any control over his direction.

As he took a deep breath, pretending to read the letter addressed to the Other Blake’s mother to give himself a moment to collect himself, Tom realized with painful clarity why the 6th seemed so familiar. He’d written the date at the bottom of a sketch, the one that he’d been brave enough to give to Will. It was the date that Will had shown up out of the blue, the date where he’d smiled up at Tom’s face and told him that he loved him for the first time.

Will knew. Will had to know.

Oblivious to Tom’s inner panic, the historian set a photograph on top of the bible in between them. “Here’s the family itself. You must be closely related; you bear a striking resemblance.”

The Blake family looked up at Tom as he set down the letter, the Other Blake immediately catching at his eye. Apart from the horribly unflattering haircut, Tom might as well have been the Thomas Blake of this portrait. It was strange to see him, like he existed just on the other side of a mirror, living out some mirror life. Tom wished he could reach this Blake, wished he could beg him to explain what the hell was going on.

But he remained still, looking out in seriousness standing over his mother’s shoulder. She looked a little like Tom’s mother, had the same soft cheeks and same sloping nose. Yet, they clearly weren’t the same, weren’t strange photocopies of each other. The handsome, strapping brother on her other side had no resemblance to Tom’s sister. It was really just Tom.

He sat in a daze as the man rambled on about their military history, spending far more time on Joseph’s career than Thomas’s whose time was cut short during some unnamed mission. Tom let the man speak as he lost himself in strange connections that refused to let go of him.

Thomas Blake simply stared back at him.

It wasn’t until Tom stepped back outside that he felt like he could breathe properly again, finally free of the weight of the past sitting so close to him. Not that he really left it behind or anything, what with the photocopies of the bible and the letter and the family photo tucked into Will’s file on the Other Blake. But the world felt a little less surreal and strange out in the sun.

Still, he felt heavier than before somehow, like the past had wrapped itself around him. He wondered if this was how Will felt all of the time.

Letting his feet guide him, Tom wandered through the village. This was the true countryside, the part of Essex set away from the crowded beaches and city sprawl and dated suburban housing divisions, the part that everyone forgot when they joked about his accent. The houses around him stretched out, their gardens reaching out to the street. Quaint and lovely.

Tom wondered how different his life would have been growing up around here. How different the Other Blake’s had been. This felt more like that life. Distant and uncertain compared to the neat privets that divided up Tom’s childhood. As he thought, he let his feet guide him along, trailing along after some unknown whim, he couldn’t be sure. It felt good to let go, trapped as he was by his school routine and his fear of facing Will again.

He hadn’t been lying.

At the end of the lane, a tiny church sat on a wide, grassy lawn. Rows of neat white crosses lay tucked on one side, and Tom knew somehow that this was where he’d been heading all along.

When he reached the corner of the little graveyard, Tom sunk to the ground. The Blake family lay resting just underneath him: the father, the mother, the brother. Three crosses, nearly unintelligible after standing so long under the rain and wind and decay, but Tom could feel it, the connection hitting Tom square in the chest.

Thomas Blake wasn’t here.

“Your boy came ‘round while you were out on your adventure,” Paola mentioned the first night after Tom had arrived back from the countryside. They were in the kitchen, waiting silently for their toast. He’d really been trying to seem normal, hoping and praying that it would be enough for them not to press for answers that he had no idea how to give. But it was difficult.

Suddenly Will’s silence made all of the sense in the world.

“What did he have to say?” Tom asked, tapping the bench in a sporadic rhythm. He bit back a thousand other questions, _has he been sleeping alright, did he look healthy, does he actually miss me or just my face?_

_Was he angry at me?_

“He didn’t say anything, really. He just wanted you to know he’d stopped by.” But Paola shrugged, unable to answer even the question he’d voiced. She pursed her lips, eyes focused on the toaster as if it could answer her and said, “He seemed really worried about you. When I said you weren’t here, he seemed kind of…I don’t know, panicky? Confused? I don’t know, he’s hard to read.”

Tom tried to picture the expressions flitting through Will’s eyes, the way his jaw would work while he was thinking—all tiny indicators, but so expressive when he knew where to look. Even just picturing Will’s face was like a stab to his heart. It was stupid, he should be angry or upset or _something_ about Will choosing to keep a bombshell like…like everything to himself. But Tom couldn’t. Not when being away from him so long felt like all of the life was slowly bleeding out from the world around him.

But he couldn’t go back yet. If he did, Tom would probably just throw himself at Will’s feet and just let himself forget, let himself pretend like this didn’t matter, let himself simply accept the answers that Will could provide without trying to find his own.

He couldn’t do that to himself, couldn’t do that to Will or the Other Blake or the Other Schofield. Not when he still had so few answers, not when he still couldn’t understand how Sco fit into all of this, how it all aligned with Will’s dreams and the photographs and the graveyard. He hadn’t been seeing Sco, but he had felt him hovering over his shoulder since he’d found himself in the little lounge room staring at the very real and very much gone Blake family. Sco was trying to whisper to him, and now Will was, too.

It was all a little too much right now. Not with the weight of finding the Other Blake, of trying to piece together what little he could.

He needed more time, he needed Will to give him more time.

Will had messaged him ages ago, literally the day after he walked out with the folder in hand, but Tom hadn’t known what to say. He still didn’t. It took him ages trying to walk that careful line of saying just enough without inviting a conversation, uncertain if Will would be able to read into his head through his mobile just as easily as he could in person.

 _i cant do this rn,_ he typed out, hoping desperately that Will would be able to read the silent, invisible resolve between his words. Wishing that he was brave enough to ask for time, but still so uncertain of how much he would need.

“Please wait for me,” Tom mumbled as he pressed send.

It was late, and he couldn’t remember what day of the week it was anymore. Without his Wednesdays in the library, his weekend mornings spent in the light and warmth of Will’s flat, Tom had begun to lose all sense of time. Untethered from the world. But his essay was finished, despite the fact that he had no idea what he’d written even though he’d only completed the thing minutes ago. Tom had sort of given up on that kind of thing. Flopping back against his pillow, he opened up a new tab in his browser.

He’d just googled it, really: _wwi cemeteries in france_. The website lay hidden below Wikipedia articles and cemetery sites, and he stared rather blankly at it for a moment. The commonwealth had a freaking war graves commission. Of freaking course.

Without even thinking about it, Tom found himself reaching for his mobile, ready to shoot off a message about how incredibly useful and specific this department was, how proud the special collections’ staff would be of him for doing the research himself. But Will probably didn’t want to hear from him now. Probably had started to hate Tom for running, for shouting and crying and pointing all of the blame on him.

Tom set his mobile back down on the bed.

The search was pretty simple, just fill in the blanks of the Other Blake’s name and the country he’d died in. Simple, boring facts, but it felt like drowning again. Like a new kind of death. He was easy to find, the only lance corporal listed, the service number oddly ingrained like an old telephone number in his mind. But the age.

If Tom was in his place, he’d already be gone.

Breathing hard, he managed to press the link. The screen was simplified, reading out the Other Blake’s information, all rote and easy like it wasn’t the most painful thing Tom had seen. A pretty picture was displayed below his information, a green lawn with neat white markers, bright red poppies. Beside it, the cemetery’s name and location.

Lebucquiere Communal Cemetery Extension. Pas de Calais, France.

There was a strange number just over the link to the cemetery map, like a call number. After following the link, the image of the cemetery filled his screen, and Tom mumbled the number to himself, tracing the labelled squares across the map. “III C 9,” he repeated as his finger found the space on his screen. Under his finger, kilometres upon kilometres away in France, lay the Other Blake. The ultimate proof, the swansong of Tom’s denial.

Alone, alone, alone in France.

Pressing his hands over his eyes, Tom felt a sob rip through his chest. He had no idea what had happened to him, to all of the other names on the graves in the tiny cemetery and countless others strewn haphazardly across Europe, but it ached, it burned up inside of him.

The Other Blake’s life had been ripped away. But what happened that made this all matter now? What horrible uncertainties had conspired to make his stolen life bleed through the years to live on now? To seep through to Tom’s average, boring life and paint it up with Sco’s presence, with Will’s dreams?

This wasn’t meant to happen, he knew that much.

Did they not have a choice? Was he so bound by the past that he had to follow where it led? Did he really care if it had, assuming that path was what had led him to Will?

Tom was really trying to reclaim a sense of himself, trying to find something that was _his_ and not some fragment of the Other Blake’s life. His friends seemed like the easiest place to start. Instead of curling up in his bed all afternoon, he tried to find where he fit among his housemates again. If he just overlooked the pitying smiles they sent him when they thought he wasn’t looking, it began to feel like life before everything had changed. Like maybe Will had never happened at all.

That seemed to be the consensus that his friends had come to, ignoring the silent presence of Will hovering just behind Tom. But Tom was growing more and more terrified by what he had forgotten and what he was forgetting. Part of him was desperate to talk about Will if only to prove that it _had_ happened, that Will and their relationship was real, but Tom was so lost in the details he had uncovered of the Other Blake that he had no idea where to start.

Luckily, some of his friends were willing to try for Tom.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with Mark, their notes spread out in between them when Mark tapped his chin in thought and said, “When life is pretty shit, I like to think to myself: what would Naruto do?”

“He’d probably tell you to ‘believe it’ or something,” Tom yawned.

“I’m being serious,” Mark pouted, leaning forward to look Tom in the eye. “Remember when Sasuke joined Orochimaru? And Naruto couldn’t convince him to come back to Leaf Village and everything sucked, because we _all_ know that they’re super in love and in denial, right? Well, he trained for years to be able to able to face Sasuke, and ultimately, that training saved them both.” Pausing, Mark raised his brows expectantly, clearly waiting for Tom’s response.

“Mark, mate, are you telling me that I need to study harder to become the Hokage of Leaf Village or some shit?” Tom asked.

“No, I’m saying that, even when everything looked pretty hopeless, Naruto never gave up on Sasuke,” Mark explained slowly. “And all of the time they spent apart made them both stronger. Literally, they’re the most powerful ninja ever.”

Tom blinked, knowing that Mark could see his metaphor sinking into Tom’s brain. Smiling gently, Mark patted the back of Tom’s hand and turned back to his notes. But Tom felt the ice under his skin, the stagnant shell of his life cracking just a little as the parallel filled Tom’s chest with feeling.

The tiniest glimmer of hope.

There was something strange about looking at the pictures of the Other Blake now, a little like looking at pictures of himself as a child. Like looking into a mirror and knowing instinctively that he was looking at himself. He _was_ Other Blake, he had to be. Although there were no explanations, no reasons, no answers anywhere in here, he was. That was easy.

But looking at that lone picture of Other Schofield? It ached. He was Sco, he was Will, the two superimposed over each other just like Tom’s mind had done when they’d met for the first time.

All of his denial and confusion and rationalizing had plastered over the truth. He’d been staring the only answer he’d ever get in the face all this time.

Sco was who he had been, Will was who he was now.

And the part of Other Blake that lived inside him had been there all along. Together, they’d been in love with Sco, with Will. Together, they’d been waiting for this.

It felt so easy to admit to himself, alone in his bedroom, exhausted as he tried to focus on schoolwork when all he wanted was to crawl into Will’s arms and sleep. All he wanted was to ask if he could stay, _really_ stay this time. Somehow, though, Will had begun to seem like a moon hanging overhead. A brilliant, shining light that lay just out of reach. All Tom wanted was to curl into Will, but he couldn’t bear the thought of him turning away. It seemed like maybe he had, what with no calls, no messages, no return visits. He wondered how long it would take for Will to forget about him, to move on with someone more…mature, smart, funny, anything.

Someone without the pain of the past hanging overhead.

The uncertainty of not knowing felt safer than a confirmation of Tom’s worst fears right now.

So, he put his head down, and he worked. He threw himself into his classes, hoping that it would be enough to get him through, enough to keep his mind from turning towards France, towards the past, towards Will. It almost felt like normalcy if he didn’t focus too hard. Almost felt like nothing was wrong. Almost.

The feeling burst after 3 in the morning a week before the end of the term. A week before the busyness that was keeping Tom sane was going to dry up like a stream in the summer sun, tapped of all its worth. At this point, Tom had sort of stopped thinking at all.

But then his mobile was ringing. Or quacking, rather, the duck noises repeating over and over, signalling that it was Will ringing.

Tom had been dozing in front of his computer, Netflix running through the second season of _The Office_ for about the seventh time. This was a new normal for him, needing something running in the background at all times. It reminded him a little of a conversation that happened ages ago, of Will’s minor discomfort admitting that he often slept with the telly on. Now that Tom was terrified to face him again, he finally understood what Will meant.

In his partially asleep state, he couldn’t tell whether he’d been dreaming up Will’s call at first. Maybe he’d just gone mad, desperate for some invitation into Will’s life.

That was a stupid thing to wish, he hadn’t even invited Tom in the first place. Still, a dream was a dream, no matter how stupid and impossible it was. But the call at least was real, the quacks stopping abruptly as it clicked over to voicemail. Tom tapped the bedspread, counting out the seconds and hoping, hoping, hoping.

Finally, just as his heart clenched in disappointment, it buzzed again as a tiny voicemail logo lit up the screen.

Tom stared at the little logo until his screen turned itself off, then clicked the screen back to life just to stare more. This was Will’s third attempt to communicate, the third try. Something about that felt significant, almost as significant as the randomness of the time.

He knew he could ignore this, could put off dealing with this for as long as he wanted. Maybe that was Will’s plan, he didn’t know.

There was no way he could ignore this, though.

The voicemail began with a long pause, then Will took a breath. “Hi,” he said, voice soft and still thick with sleep. Tom could feel his own breath going erratic just hearing his voice again. It had been weeks, but he’d missed it so fucking much. Will cleared his throat on the message and continued, “I hope I didn’t wake you. I don’t even know what made me ring you this late, anyways. Well, except the fact that you’re not here. So.”

Tom wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting really, but the gentle sorrow in Will’s voice was far worse than anything. The way he said _you’re not here_ like it caused him actual, physical pain.

“I just want you to know that—” Will said, interrupting Tom’s thought just for his own breath to falter. When he began again, he sounded more determined, even as his voice shook with feeling. “To know that I know I fucked this whole thing. I hid what I should have given to you, and I have to live with that. It's awful, it _sucks,_ but I’ll never blame you for anything. Not for hating me or leaving or anything.”

Pressing his hand over his mouth, Tom tried to stifle his crying enough to hear. Everything about this message, delivered in the dark as they both clearly were trying not to fall apart, cut through Tom, but he needed this. He needed this.

“If you never want to talk to me again, I understand. But if you do want to talk about…anything, about the past or my dreams or I don’t know, the weather or anything, I’ll be ready. Say the word, and I’ll be ready.” Pausing one last time, Will breathed out in Tom’s ear. “If you ever need me, for any reason at all, I’ll be there, okay? I will be there,” and then he was gone.

He hadn’t been expecting a last ditch, desperate plea. He hadn’t been expecting Will to shoulder the blame. He hadn’t been expecting Will’s forgiveness or longing to be offered up so freely.

Once upon a time, Tom had quietly and stealthily invited himself into Will’s life, pushing past the boundaries that Will had drawn around himself. Tom had made himself a home where he could. But maybe, this time, Will had left open the door. Maybe he had pulled back the curtains just a little to let Tom know that he was welcome. Wanted. Loved. Maybe he was finally ready to lay everything out, really figure out what all of this meant, together.

Maybe it was time to come home.

“Are you sure about this?” Lucy asked, her voice gentle and uncertain.

“Definitely. I’ll ring if things go wrong, but don’t expect me for a while,” Tom replied. He felt more sure about this than he had about almost anything in the past few weeks. With each passing day since hearing Will’s voice again, Tom felt a plan forming in his head. Not perfect, but definitely something.

“Okay, I trust you. No matter what happens, you can handle this,” Lucy replied.

Tom tipped back his head to smile ruefully at the sky. He could, he knew that now. “Yeah, I think so, too.”

The term was over for him as of about fifteen minutes beforehand, his final project handed in. Walking out to ring Lucy to tell her not to wait up for him at supper that night, Tom noticed the world around him for the first time in ages. Since cutting himself off, summer had truly set in, all deep greens and soft light and chirping birds. He was ready for the sun, ready for whatever lay on the other side of this afternoon.

It felt oddly like walking through a dream as he rode the train to Will’s stop, cutting down the paths towards Will’s flat on his own.

He hadn’t told Will he was coming, didn’t have the words to explain himself yet, but he hoped that seeing his face would do the trick. That or Will would just read his mind again and save them both some time. Either way, regardless of whether he had the words for this or not, Tom needed to see Will. Needed to try to make this right again.

Purnima had assured him that Will’s schedule was the same as always the day before, but he arrived early simply because he had nowhere else to be. This was where he wanted to belong anyway, so he was willing to wait.

The light was that special kind of hazy that only happened in the city during the summer, as if all of the people and cars and trains had crowded the air. It tripped around the long terraced houses and flats on either side of the street and distorted their shapes. Tom let his mind wander as he traced their lines, his brain conjuring up image after image of what might happen once Will arrived.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Will said, tearing Tom from his daydreams.

Just like with the buildings, the light twisted around Will, settling delicately along the planes of his face. Otherworldly, like some man made of mist and Tom’s longing. Honestly, though, Will always sort of looked like that to Tom. Too good to be true.

Tom found himself floating after Will, following him inside and settling into the place he’d left behind on the lounge room floor. It was like he was on autopilot, like he’d travelled back in time to the before. Him on the floor, waiting for Will to finish with the kettle in the next room. Everything about this looked like returning to the past, but it felt like…he couldn’t even begin to string words together to explain how different everything suddenly felt.

There was a hesitance to the way they looked at each other, hovering carefully out of arms’ reach. They knew too much to ignore the sudden weight of this reunion. Then, there was the box of Tom’s things on the lounge room floor. Neat, tidy, ready to leave with Tom.

He swallowed hard, trying to tell himself that he could handle this. No matter what happened.

Will set down a mug of tea beside Tom on the couch table, pulling him from his thoughts. After nearly memorizing Will’s voicemail, after spending weeks trying to figure out what he’d say to Will at this very moment, Tom found himself blurting out, “You packed up my things?”

“I just wanted to be ready in case you wanted to take everything and leave,” he responded, slow like he was afraid Tom would run if given the chance. It hurt worse to hear it in person.

But it made sense that Will would jump to conclusions when Tom had given him nothing except his panicked, overwhelmed cries as he ran. Had avoided him, unconsciously and not, for weeks now as he tried to piece his reality back together again. Of course Will would assume the worst. He glared at the box, all of his things that he’d been so careful and strategic to get here, the physical reminders that he’d left behind. That he was supposed to fit here. There had to be some way to make this right.

Will hadn’t admitted to everything willingly, but Tom would. Maybe that would be enough to fix this.

“We need to talk,” he said, pulling out the folder to set on the couch table between them.

“Alright. Would you like me to start?” Will looked at Tom almost shyly, but there was determination there, too. Tom could work with that.

Smiling a little ruefully, Tom shook his head gently and said, “I know you’ve probably spent all of this time brooding, thinking of things to say, but I really think that maybe I should go first.” He flipped open the folder, turning it for Will to see. The copied photo of the Blake family sat on top, staring up at them both.

Will’s hand was so delicate as he touched it, an odd look passing over his eyes. Like the ghosts of the Other Blake’s family meant something to him. Maybe they did. “Where did you find this?” he murmured.

Tom shrugged one shoulder, knowing that everything needed explaining. “Essex.” Seeing Will’s moment of surprise, he continued, “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

This was his last moment to turn back, he could feel it. Could feel it just like he could feel the strange pull of things, leading him down the paths he needed to follow.

“So. I guess I should start at the beginning. The very beginning,” he clarified, glancing up at Will. His face was calm, but there was a strange kind of openness, too. Like maybe he couldn’t hide his curiosity and uncertainty. Like maybe he wanted Tom to finally see. “You already know about me and my sister grew up making all these stories. We’d spend hours just drawing and talking about the characters and their adventures. Sarah would always write about these little creatures that lived in the garden, bunnies and gnomes and elves, but what I didn't tell you was that all of mine were about the same person, about all of the adventures we had around the world. He was special.”

Tom glanced down, feeling the same ghostly presence over his shoulder. Always. “I always called him, ‘Sco.’”

Will grew very still.

Nerves sat heavy in Tom’s stomach at the sight. Was it too much? He could hear himself barrelling on. “I used to draw him over and over, trying to get him to look just like I pictured him in my head. But nothing was quite right, you know? When I saw you, it was like seeing that image in my head so clearly.” _I should have known then_ , Tom wanted to say. “That’s what I meant when I said I knew it was you. I just figured that I’d finally found the right face to fit my imagination, and I kept telling myself that your name was a coincidence. That the way you talked and moved and smiled, that everything was just a nice, happy coincidence. I nearly convinced myself that’s all it was for a long time.

“I think that’s why I panicked when I found all this.” The stack of photos and papers looked so innocuous as he waved his hand over them. “It was proof that this wasn’t a coincidence, that _we_ weren’t a coincidence. Suddenly everything I thought was so set and clear was just one big question mark.”

Will let out a tiny breath and said, “I should have told you.”

“Yeah, probably, but I don’t know how I would have taken it then, either,” Tom replied, tapping his fingers against the mug. He smiled, realizing that it was the mug with the university crest on it, _Special Collections and Archives_ printed neatly underneath.

Then, quiet and gentle, like a breeze across his face, Will whispered, “Tom.”

When Tom braved a tiny glance at Will’s face, he had to bite down on his lip to keep from crying again. Pain and uncertainty battled across Will’s brows, pure, raw concern poured from his eyes. It was like listening to his voicemail for the first time again, only with the volume turned up and the full weight of Will’s desperation laying across Tom’s chest. Tom wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forgive himself for making Will look this way.

He forced himself to turn his eyes to the ceiling, hoping that it would give him enough separation to explain himself without falling apart. “I’m not angry,” he admitted, his brain conjuring up the sound of Will’s voice saying _you’re not here_ over and over. “I wasn’t ever, really, it just felt like…Like this wasn’t our choice anymore, maybe. Like maybe you were looking at me and seeing the other Blake. Like everything I was feeling wasn’t me, but this big script that we had to follow. Fate always seemed like a trap, you know?”

“I won’t lie to you, that’s an aspect I never really considered. But I’ve spent my entire life trying to keep me and the other Will Schofield separate, so I do understand,” Will said, the hint of a laugh in his voice clearly trying to mask the truth of it all.

Tom finally let his eyes meet Will’s. Finally let himself search for that opening that he hoped desperately Will was giving him here. And despite his attempts to shy away, Will’s returned gaze felt different somehow. Without thinking, Tom murmured, “It must hurt, carrying around all that with you all the time.”

“Yes. But I’m used to it,” Will replied, voice even and calm like it wasn’t the most heart-breaking thing either of them had said yet.

“At first, I didn’t want to believe you. About the dreams.” Leaning forward, Tom fought the urge to reach out, still hesitant to cross any lines before he got everything off of his chest. “Kept telling myself that maybe you were just, I don’t know, projecting, looking for patterns and connections where there weren’t any. But there were all these feelings, and, the more I looked at what’s left of the other Blake, the more I felt like I was forgetting something.”

It was a little like seeing Will for the first time again, the stillness descending over him so suddenly that Tom almost got whiplash. _I thought you knew_ , he’d said before Tom ran.

Tom turned his attention to the pile of photos and papers between them. “I needed answers, so I did what you did and started to research. I even went to Essex over the midterm break, because I just had this feeling. It was like I knew right where to look, which paths to take, which people to hunt down. I kept finding things right where I knew they’d be. It’s amazing the types of records that people keep,” he said as he set a printout on top of the pile.

The cemetery map.

Will’s fingers hovered over the red circle Tom had made on the printout, reverent. “This is—”

“Where the Other Blake is buried, yeah,” Tom finished for him. “I cried over that, don’t even know why, really. But everyone else is buried together. The rest of his family. I hate that he’s alone out there in France, middle of nowhere.” As he spoke, he pulled up the photo he’d taken in the little village cemetery on his mobile, the three graves sat side by side. Missing one. Will blinked at the picture, eyes a little wild.

With trembling lips, Will turned to look at Tom. “He didn’t die alone, though. Schofield was with him.”

Tom felt the world slam to a stop, silence ringing in his ears. “Jesus, you’ve seen it, haven’t you?” he said as he watched Will’s eyes trailing through the past. April 6th. Will knew all along. “You saw him…go.”

“Yes,” Will breathed.

The shards of everything Tom had seen tiny glimpses of seemed to fall into place.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over how fucked up this is,” Tom mumbled, letting his head fall forward as he tugged at his hair. “And how fucked up it is that you have to relive everything while all I’m stuck with is a bunch of childhood stories and this,” tapping the photo of the Blakes. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Of course it’s not, but this was the hand we were dealt. Sometimes that’s all there is,” Will replied. His eyes were focused on his hands, looking almost ashamed that he didn’t have more answers for Tom.

Tom let himself stare, let himself drink in the exact shape of Will’s lips as he thought, the way he angled his shoulders, the precise movements of his hands. After spending weeks with the single image of the Other Will Schofield, Tom had forgotten how much his presence alone affected him. It didn’t matter that they had no choice. Not when Will was coloured in soft light that drew Tom in like a moth, not when Will was shaped like home and happiness, not when Will was more than the past.

The past would never truly go away, but Tom got to decide what he wanted his future to look like.

“I miss you,” Tom confessed. It was the only thing he’d really planned on saying. “I missed you the second I walked out the door, but I needed to figure this shit out. I needed to know where everything fit together.”

“I know. I understand.”

But now that Tom had begun to speak, he couldn’t stop. “And I wanted to ring you, I wanted to show up here and talk to you so fucking badly about all of this, but it was like the longer I waited, the more distant you seemed somehow. And school’s been such a pain, you know? It was like I didn’t even have time to breathe, let alone process this. And Jesus, I was awful to you when I found this. I just—”

“Tom.” Will reached out for Tom’s hand, but drew up short, a tiny gap felt like an ocean between them. “I think it’s fair to say that both of us handled everything poorly. There’s not much we can do about it now other than try to be better.”

“But you thought I hated you,” Tom countered, almost begging Will to understand. “It’s a bit of a terrifying thing to realize, you know? Even when I was trying to convince myself that you were just making this all up, I never questioned whether I loved you or not. I think maybe I’ve spent my whole life loving you without even realizing.”

Finally, _finally,_ Will pressed his fingers against Tom’s cheeks, cradling his face like it was precious, like he was the most precious thing Will had held. The edges of his vision went blurry with tears, because he could feel the certainty of Will’s love coursing through him.

“I've spent my life looking for you. For this version of you,” Will said, like he’d read Tom’s mind. “I’ve always loved you, Tom, that won’t change.”

The weight of all this should have terrified him, Tom knew that, the pressure of the past trying to correct its mistakes with this Will holding onto this Tom. But it just felt like finding something that he’d never realized he’d missed. Like the way their hands slid together so perfectly, like the gaps between Will’s fingers were designed to fit Tom’s.

"Come back to me," Will begged.

“I did. I am,” Tom responded, thinking of Sco, thinking of the Blake that lived on in Will’s dreams. They’d been leading them here all along. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Will swallowed Tom’s apology, practically lunging around the couch table to taste those words on his lips, taste the tears still spilling down his cheeks. And Tom offered them up freely. All of the hesitance from before evaporated between their chests, under their palms as they held each other too tightly. His hands twisted into the fabric of Will’s shirt as he fought to bring him closer, closer, closer.

There was a language to their desperation, a colour to it that Tom could see streaking behind his eyelids. Something only they could see. The past would always be hanging over them, but Tom got to decide what colour he wanted his future to be. Their future.

In any life, in all of his, it was Will. It would always be Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me until the end of this story for the second time! Showing Tom's side of things was so much fun for me, I hope you enjoyed it, too :) Special thanks to everyone who commented, I truly cherish them (even if it takes me forever to respond :'))  
> Feel free to find me on tumblr at [thenightwindow.](https://thenightwindow.tumblr.com/) While you're there, check out this beautiful [edit](https://yonderlight.tumblr.com/post/618561586429296640/in-honor-of-thenightwindow-finishing-a-world-in) that yonderlight created for this series. I'm obsessed with all of the details, it's PERFECTION <3  
> Love you all! See you in the next one!!


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